ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Fast Facts

Gary Pattillo

StoryCorps oral history project

The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress is partnering with Sound Portraits Productions to develop StoryCorps, a new oral history project inspired by the historic Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Writers’ Project. It has the potential to become one of the largest oral history projects ever donated to the Library of Congress. StoryCorps will build soundproof facilities across the countiy where Americans can participate in the project. The new collection will be housed alongside the WPA recordings.

"American Folklife Center Houses Storycorps Archive," www.loc.gov/today/pr/2003/03-168.html. September 30, 2003

Lost Internet references

Internet references accounted for 2.6 percent of all references in medical and scientific publications between 2000 and 2003, according to a new study published in Science. These cited references often disappear. For example, 13 percent of Internet references were inactive in articles 27 months old.

Robert P. Dellavalle, et al., "Going, Going, Gone: Lost Internet References," Science. October 31,2003, pp. 787-88

How much information?

School of Information Management and Systems researchers at the University of California-Berkeley estimate that print, film, magnetic, and optical storage media produced about five exabytes of new information in 2002. This is equivalent in size to the information contained in 500,000 libraries the size of the Library of Congress print collections. According to their findings, the United States produces about 40 percent of the world’s new stored information.

Peter Lyman and Hal R. Varian, "How Much Information? 2003," www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how- much-info-2003/. October 28,2003

International student enrollment

The Institute of International Education reports the number of foreign students studying in the United States grew less than 1 percent last year following a five- year average annual growth rate of 5 percent. India, Korea, and Kenya saw increases while Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and United Arab Emirates saw significant decreases. India, China, and South Korea are the top three countries with the largest number of students studying in the United States.

"Open Doors 2003: International Students in the U.S." opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=36523. November 3,2003

WorldCat and Google

A 2 million record subset from the more than 53 million records in the WorldCat database became searchable via Google in November. As part of the Open WorldCat pilot project, select records with 100 or more libraries holding each item can be retrieved, allowing users to click through to individual library holdings information.

Barbara Quint, "OCLC Project Opens WorldCat Records to Google," Information Today, Inc. www.infotoday.com/ newsbreaks/nb031027-2.shtml. November 3,2003

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