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C&RL News November 2016  524

Gary Pattillo is reference librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, e-mail: pattillo@email.
unc.edu

G a r y  P a t t i l l o

The condition of education
In school year 2013–14, an all-time high of 82 percent of public high school 
students graduated with a regular diploma within 4 years of first starting 9th 
grade. Sixty-eight percent of 2014 high school completers enrolled in college 
the following fall: 44 percent went to 4-year institutions and 25 percent went 
to 2-year institutions. About 57 percent of male students and 62 percent of 
female students who began their bachelor’s degree in the fall of 2008, and did 
not transfer, had completed their degree within six years. In 2013–14, over 1 
million associate’s degrees, 1.9 million bachelor’s degrees, and over 750,000 
master’s degrees were awarded.
Grace Kena, William Hussar, Joel McFarland, Cristobal de Brey, et al., “The Condition of Education 2016 (NCES 2016-
144),” U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Washington, D.C., http://nces.ed.gov 
/pubs2016/2016144.pdf (retrieved October 4, 2016).

“We’re going backward!”
“As we move toward the present, the media of our expression seems to have 
decreasing longevity... (I began) thinking again about the ephemeral nature of 
our artifacts and the possibility that the centuries well before ours will be better 
known than ours will be unless we are persistent about preserving digital con-
tent. The earlier media seem to have a kind of timeless longevity while modern 
media from the 1800s forward seem to have shrinking lifetimes.”
Vinton G. Cerf, “‘We’re Going Backward!’” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 59, no. 10 (October 2016): 7. 
doi:10.1145/2993746 (retrieved October 6, 2016).

Publishing in India
“The Indian book market…is estimated to be the sixth largest in the world 
(valued at $3.9 billion, according to Nielsen), and the second largest in terms 
of English-language publishing (after the U.S.).”
Teri Tan, “Navigating the Challenges and Opportunities in India,” Publishers Weekly, Vol. 263, no. 4 (January 25, 2016): 5.

Library link location
“The location of the library link on doctorate-granting institution websites cor-
relates with research output. Doctoral granting institutions with higher research 
output put the hyperlink to their library on more prominent positions on the 
university website.”
Jessica Simpson, “The Heart of the University: Library Link Location on Doctoral Granting Institutions Webpages and 
Correlation with Research Output,” Journal of Academic Librarianship, Vol. 42, no. 5 (2016): 503–508, doi:http://dx.doi.
org/10.1016/j.acalib.2016.06.011 (retrieved October 11, 2016).

Google vs. library resources
A four-year longitudinal study of a freshman cohort at a large public university 
found that, as students matured, they used library resources more frequently for 
their research. In their first semester, 69 percent of students said they started with 
Google while only 30 percent started with library resources. After four years, 
the percentage of participants starting their research with library resources rose 
to 45 percent. Librarian instruction and faculty source requirements both were 
associated with increased use of library resources.
Carol Perruso, “Undergraduates’ Use of Google vs. Library Resources: A Four-Year Cohort Study,” College & Research 
Libraries, Vol. 77, no. 5 (September 2016): 614-630, doi:10.5860/crl.77.5.614 (retrieved October 11, 2016).