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

Magazine publishing

For the period 2009-2018, the number of print consumer magazine titles published in the U.S. rose from 7,110 to 7,218. That is down from the peak of 7,390 in 2012 but up from 2017’s total of 7,176, according to the Association of Magazine Media.

The Association of Magazine Media, MPA Magazine Media Factbook, 2019, https://www.magazine.org/Magazine/Research_and_Resources_Pages/MPA_Factbook.aspx (retrieved November 4, 2019).

Corporate reputation rankings

An Axios Harris poll measuring the reputation of the 100 “most visible companies” found that according to the general public, Facebook saw the biggest decline from 2018 (43 percent) coming in at position 94. Google dropped 13 percent to position 41. According to the poll, Wegmans ranks 1 and Amazon ranks 2.

The Harris Poll (blog), “The Axios Harris Poll 100: 2019 Corporate Reputation Rankings,” https://theharrispoll.com/axios-harrispoll-100 (retrieved November 1, 2019).

U.S. and Canadian print book holdings

The U.S. and Canadian collective print book collection—the collective print book holdings of all libraries in the U.S. and Canada whose collections are registered in WorldCat—currently includes 59.2 million distinct print book publications based on 994.3 million holdings.

Brian Lavoie, “The US and Canadian Collective Print Book Collection: A 2019 Snapshot,” Dublin, OH: OCLC Research, https://doi.org/10.25333/7zjv-jv94 (retrieved November 4, 2019).

Reading proficiency

Only 35 percent of fourth graders were proficient in reading in 2019, down from 37 percent in 2017. Only 34 percent of eighth graders were proficient in reading, down from 36 percent.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, “The nation’s report card,” 2019, U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/reading/2019 (retrieved November 4, 2019).

Private high school graduates

Of the 348,234 private high school graduates in 2016–17, about 62 percent attended four-year colleges by the fall of 2017.

Stephen P. Broughman, Brian Kincel, and Jennifer Peterson, “Characteristics of Private Schools in the United States: Results from the 2017–18 Private School Universe Survey First Look (NCES 2019-071),” U.S. Department of Education,” Washington, D.C.: National Center for Education Statistics, https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2019071 (retrieved November 1, 2019).