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

Citation inequality

“By analyzing a global sample of 4 million authors and 26 million scientific papers (a recent) study finds that the top 1 percent most-cited scientists have increased their cumulative citation shares from 14 to 21 percent between 2000 and 2015.”

Mathias Wullum Nielsen and Jens Peter Andersen, “Global Citation Inequality Is on the Rise,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118, no. 7 (February 16, 2021), https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2012208118 (retrieved June 8, 2021).

Podcast growth

The unique monthly audience of the top ten podcast publishers tracked by Podtrac increased during the five-year period April 2016-April 2021 from 2.8 million to 11.4 million. The number of global downloads and streams for the same group increased from 168.9 million to 883.2 million downloads and streams per month, representing a 423 percent increase.

Podtrac, “April 2021 - Top Podcast Publishers - 5 Year Anniversary,” May 9, 2021, http://analytics.podtrac.com/blog/jan2019-rankings-k7mjk-yam8h-l72fn-tzsyw-t6zrw-a8m7w-gf3ps-766bhptd94-2bgmm-9bt9k-dzya9-mll7t-b48b5-c6zfc-bacpe-xpwlt-befn8-ga39c-r5287-zd4br-69r3l-ccm2s-wljkmk5lny-cdr54 (retrieved June 7, 2021).

Substack

Substack, an online platform for subscription newsletters, currently has more than 500,000 paid subscribers across its network of thousands of newsletters worldwide.

Sara Fischer, “Substack Plots Growing Global Footprint,” June 8, 2021, Axios, https://www.axios.com/substack-global-subscribers-newsletters-c281d80a-d7b9-4220-afd6-bcf3dbc2273d.html (retrieved June 8, 2021).

Post-COVID-19 working from home

“Forty percent of Americans prefer to work from home full-time, compared with 35 percent who seek a home-office hybrid and 25 percent who want to go back to the office full-time, according to a Harris Poll survey of 2,063 adults conducted May 14-16.”

Matthew Feider, “‘The DNA of Work Has Changed’: Many Americans Want to Keep Working from Home after the COVID-19 Crisis Passes,” The Harris Poll (blog), May 19, 2021, https://theharrispoll.com/the-dna-of-work-has-changed-many-americans-want-to-keep-working-from-home-after-the-covid-19-crisis-passes (retrieved June 8, 2021).

Public school teaching

When asked, “Do you think you have what it takes to be a public school teacher in the United States?” 33 percent of U.S. adults surveyed responded “yes,” while 48 percent responded “no.”

YouGov, “Daily Question,” May 4, 2021, https://today.yougov.com/topics/education/survey-results/daily/2021/05/04/d0ffb/3 (retrieved June 4, 2021).