ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 406 / C&RL News ■ M ay 2002 F a s A n n t V i I e s Facts The Tasini e ffe c t Since the Supreme Court m ied against them in the New York Times v. Jonathan Tasini case, publishers have rem oved close to two decades of freelance articles beginning with those written in the late 1970s from electronic new spaper data­ bases. According to its spokesm an, Toby Usnik, the New York Times “has pulled 100,000 articles offline; however, 15,000 of those articles have been restored.” Dick Cooper reports that the publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia D aily News “has perm anently purged one-third of its 2.5 million online articles.” S cott Carlson, "O n c e -T ru s tw o rth y N ew sp a pe r Databases Have Become U n re lia b le a nd F ru s tra tin g ," th e C hronicle o f H ig h e r E d u ca tio n , Jan. 25, 2002. h ttp ://c h ro n ic le .c o m /w e e k ly /v 4 8 /i2 0 /2 0 a 0 2 9 0 1 .h tm , p assw o rd re q u ire d . A p r. 2, 2002 M ore th a n 9,000 public libraries in th e United States Recently released data from the National Center for Education Statistics reports “9,046 public libraries (administrative entities)” in the United States in 1999- The total num ber of central libraries and branch libraries was 16,220. The total num ­ ber of reference transactions in public libraries was “295 million, or 1.1 refer­ ence transactions per capita.” A. C hute, E. K roe, P. G arner, M . Polcari, a n d C. J. Ramsey, P u b lic L ib ra rie s in th e U n ite d States: Fiscal Year 1999, NCES 2 0 0 2 -3 08 , U.S. D e p a rtm e n t o f E d u ca tio n , N a tio n a l C e n te r f o r E d u ca tio n Statistics. W a s h in g to n , D.C.: 2002. h ttp ://n c e s .e d .g o v /p u b s e a rc h /p u b s in fo .a s p ? p u b id = 2 0 0 2 3 0 8 . A pr. 2, 2002 N ew d ata delivery record set by Bell Labs Scientists at Bell Labs report sending 2.56 terabits of data per second over a distance of 2,500 miles using optical fiber, nearly doubling the previous trans­ mission record of 1.6 terabits of data per second over 1,250 miles. " L u c e n t T e ch n o lo g ie s' Bell Labs Scientists Set N ew Fib er O p tic Transm ission R eco rd ," Luce n t T e ch n olo gie s, Mar. 22, 2002. h ttp ://w w w .lu c e n t.c o m /p re s s /0 3 0 2 /0 2 0 3 2 2 .b la .h tm l. A p r. 2, 2002 In te rn e t ac tiv ity changes w ith experience A longitudinal survey of Internet users first interviewed in March 2000 and interviewed again in March 2001 finds “that over the course o f a year p eo p le’s use of the Internet gets m ore serious and functional.” Nineteen percent report “doing work-related research on a typical day,” com pared to 14 percent a year earlier. Twenty-one percent report going online only at w ork com pared to 18 percent earlier. Forty-four percent “say that the Internet improves their ability to do their job a lot.” Jo hn B. H o rrig a n a nd Lee R ainie, " G e ttin g Serious O n lin e ," PEW In te r n e t & A m e ric a n L ife P ro je ct, M ar. 3 ,2 0 0 2 . h ttp ://w w w .p e w in te rn e t.o rg /re p o rts /to c .a s p ? R e p o rt= 5 5 . A p r. 2, 2002 T w en ty-five percent pay increase f o r A ustralian librarians According to a ruling last m onth by the Australian NSW Industrial Relations Commission, library em ployees will receive pay increases of up to 25 percent. The decision found that “the w ork of librarians, library technicians and archi­ vists was historically undervalued because of their gender.” "W o m e n See Pay E q u ity V ic to ry ," N ew s.com .au, M ar. 28, 2002. h ttp ://w w w .n e w s .c o m .a u /c o m m o n /p rin tp a g e / 0 ,6093,4036973,OO.htmí. M ar. 29, 2002 Ann Viles is coordinator o f reference and instruction a t Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, e-mail: vilesea@conrad.appstate.edu http://chronicle.com/weekly/v48/i20/20a02901.htm http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2002308 http://www.lucent.com/press/0302/020322.bla.html http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=55 news://News.com.au http://www.news.com.au/common/printpage/ mailto:vilesea@conrad.appstate.edu