College & Research Libraries News vol. 85, no. 3 (March 2023) C&RL News March 2023 136 Gary Pattillo is reference librarian at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, e-mail: pattillo@email.unc.edu World languages “Indigenous people make up less than six per cent of the global population but speak more than 4,000 of the world’s roughly 6,700 languages, accord- ing to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Conservative estimates indicate that more than half of all languages will become extinct by the end of this century.” “UN Launches 10-Year Survival Plan for Endangered Indigenous Languages,” UN News, De- cember 16, 2022, https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/12/1131807 (retrieved January 19, 2023). Patents Global intellectual property filings for patents, trademarks, and designs reached new highs in 2021. “Innovators around the world filed 3.4 million patent applications in 2021, up 3.6 percent from the previous year with of- fices in Asia receiving 67.6 percent of all applications worldwide.” “Worldwide IP Filings Reached New All-Time Highs in 2021, Asia Drives Growth,” World Intellectual Property Organization, November 21, 2022, https://www.wipo.int/pressroom/ en/articles/2022/article_0013.html. Research funding “Academic institutions spent $89.9 billion on research and development in the 2021 fiscal year, up 4 percent from the year before. Nearly all of the $3.4-billion increase in research spending was funded by the federal govern- ment.” Johns Hopkins University spent the largest amount on research in 2021 at $3,181,385,000. Audrey Williams June, “Which Universities Spend the Most Money on Research?” The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 20, 2022, https://www.chronicle.com/article/ which-universities-spent-the-most-money-on-research-last-year. Volume of data “The total amount of data created, captured, copied, and consumed globally is forecast to increase rapidly, (having reached) 64.2 zettabytes in 2020. Over the next . . . years up to 2025, global data creation is projected to grow to more than 180 zettabytes. In 2020, the amount of data created and replicated reached a new high. The growth was higher than previously expected caused by the increased demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as more people worked and learned from home and used home entertainment options more http://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2022/article_0013.html http://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2022/article_0013.html http://www.chronicle.com/article/which-universities-spent-the-most-money-on-research-last-year http://www.chronicle.com/article/which-universities-spent-the-most-money-on-research-last-year March 2023 137C&RL News often. Just two percent of the data produced and consumed in 2020 was saved and retained into 2021.” Petroc Taylor, “Total Data Volume Worldwide 2010-2025,” Statista, September 8, 2022, https://www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created. Mobile phone and internet users “More than two-thirds (67.1 percent) of the world’s population now uses a mobile phone, with unique users reaching 5.31 billion by the start of 2022. The global total has grown by 1.8 percent over the past year, with 95 million new mobile users since this time last year. Global internet users have climbed to 4.95 billion at the start of 2022, with internet penetration now standing at 62.5 percent of the world’s total population.” Simon Kemp, “Digital 2022: Global Overview Report,” DataReportal—Global Digital Insights, January 26, 2022, https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2022-global-overview-report. http://www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created