College & Research Libraries News vol. 85, no. 5 (May 2023)


C&RL News May 2023 182

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

Digitizing wax cylinders
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is in the process of 
digitizing fragile wax cylinders containing audio recordings including the 
Mapleson Cylinders, a collection of hundreds of early recordings of the 
Metropolitan Opera. Using an “Endpoint Cylinder and Dictabelt Machine, 
a custom-built piece of equipment made specifically for safely transferring 
audio from the cylinders, the library is embarking on an ambitious preserva-
tion project: to digitize not just the Mapleson Cylinders, but roughly 2,500 
others in the library’s possession.”
Jeremy Gordon, “Wax Cylinders Hold Audio From a Century Ago. The Library Is Listening,” 
The New York Times, January 2, 2023, sec. Arts, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/02/arts 
/music/new-york-public-library-wax-cylinders.html.

Record sales
“According to the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) an-
nual revenue report, vinyl records outsold CDs in the US last year for the 
first time since 1987, selling 41 million units against 33 million for CD. 
Vinyl record sales have consistently increased over the last 16 years according 
to the RIAA report . . . now accounting for 71 percent of all physical music 
format revenue.”
Jess Weatherbed, “Vinyl Overtakes CD Sales for the First Time since 1987,” The Verge, 
March 10, 2023, https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/10/23633605/vinyl-records-surpasses 
-cd-music-sales-us-riaa.

Book sales
“After two years of surprisingly strong sales during the pandemic, unit sales of 
print books fell 6.5 percent in 2022 compared to 2021 at outlets that report to 
NPD BookScan. Unit sales totaled 788.7 million last year, down from 843.1 
million in 2021. Adult fiction was the only one of the major categories to 
have a sales increase last year over 2021, with print unit sales up 8.5 percent.”
Jim Milliot, “Print Book Sales Fell 6.5% in 2022,” PublishersWeekly.com, Januar y 6, 
2023, https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/financial-reporting 
/article/91245-print-book-s ales-fell-6-5-in-2022.html.

Attacks on free speech
“This year, we’re seeing a wave of bills targeting drag performances, where 
simply being gender nonconforming is enough to trigger the penalty. We’re 

mailto:pattillo%40email.unc.edu?subject=
http://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/02/arts/music/new-york-public-library-wax-cylinders.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/02/arts/music/new-york-public-library-wax-cylinders.html
http://www.theverge.com/2023/3/10/23633605/vinyl-records-surpasses-cd-music-sales-us-riaa
http://www.theverge.com/2023/3/10/23633605/vinyl-records-surpasses-cd-music-sales-us-riaa
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/financial-reporting/article/91245-print-book-s
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/financial-reporting/article/91245-print-book-s


May 2023 183C&RL News 

also seeing a wave of bills regulating what can be in public or K-12 school 
libraries,” said Joe Cohn, legislative and policy director with the Foundation 
for Individual Rights and Expression. “On college campuses, we have been 
tracking data about attempts to get faculty members punished or even fired 
for speech or expression and the numbers are startling—it’s the highest rate 
that we’ve seen in our 20 years of existence.”
Rebecca Boone, “Experts Say Attacks on Free Speech Are Rising across the US,” AP NEWS, 
March 15, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/first-amendment-free-speech-censorship 
-mccarthyism-815865bafa52bb82140 0be15fdf76119.

AI misinformation
“Despite OpenAI’s promises, the company’s new (artificial intelligence) tool 
produces misinformation more frequently, and more persuasively, than its 
predecessor. Two months ago, ChatGPT-3.5 generated misinformation and 
hoaxes 80 percent of the time when prompted to do so in a NewsGuard 
exercise using 100 false narratives from its catalog of significant falsehoods 
in the news. NewsGuard found that its successor, ChatGPT-4, spread even 
more misinformation, advancing all 100 false narratives.” 
Lorenzo Arvanitis, McKenzie Sadeghi, and Jack Brewster, “NewsGuard’s Misinformation 
Monitor: GPT-4 Produces More Misinformation than Predecessor,” NewsGuard (blog), March 
2023, https://www.newsguardtech.com/misinformation-monitor/mar-2023.

https://apnews.com/article/first-amendment-free-speech-censorship-mccarthyism-815865bafa52bb82140
https://apnews.com/article/first-amendment-free-speech-censorship-mccarthyism-815865bafa52bb82140
http://www.newsguardtech.com/misinformation-monitor/mar-2023