nov07ff.indd


G a r y  P a t t i l l o  

Book banning 
Since 1999, support for the idea of banning “books with dangerous ideas” from 
public school libraries has declined from 55 percent to 46 percent and has now 
fallen to the lowest level of support of the past 20 years. 
Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007,” March 22, 
2007, pewresearch.org/pubs/434/trends-in-political-values-and-core-attitudes-1987-2007, August 14, 2007. 

UK book market 
The United Kingdom book market grew by 2.6 percent in 2006 to reach a value 
of $4.3 billion. In 2011, the market is forecast to have a value of $4.8 billion, an 
increase of 11.9 percent since 2006. Sales of general trade and consumer titles 
accounts for 67.5 percent of the United Kingdom market’s value. 
Datamonitor, “Books in the United Kingdom: Industry Profile,” July 2007 (Reference Code: 0183-0781), October 11, 2007. 

Books and translations 
Approximately 1.5 million books were published worldwide last year. About 30 
percent of them were in English. There are more than 6,900 languages spoken on 
Earth. In 2005, 3.54 percent of new adult fiction books published in the United 
States were translations. In 2005, Chinese publishers bought 3,932 American 
titles. In that same year, American publishers bought 16 Chinese titles. 
Jascha Hoffman, “Comparative Literature. (Book Review Desk),” The New York Times Book Review (April 15, 2007): 
27(L). Academic OneFile, Gale, October 17, 2007. 

Citing Medicine 
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) announced the publication of Citing 
Medicine: The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, available free 
of charge on the National Center for Biotechnology Information Bookshelf. Citing 
Medicine provides guidance for citing 26 types of published and unpublished 
material, ranging from print books and journal articles to blogs and wikis. Cit­
ing Medicine updates and supersedes two previous NLM publications: National 

unc.edu 

C&RL News November 2007  680 

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

Library of Medicine Recommended Formats for Bibliographic Citation published 
in 1991 and its Internet Supplement published in 2001. These publications will 
be archived on the NLM Web site. 
National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Citing Medicine: The NLM Style Guide 
for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, 2nd edition, 2007, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=citmed.TOC&depth=2, 
October 15, 2007. 

Digital preservation 
In many cases, digital materials are considered more fragile than physical ones. 
Machines and software used to read digital fi les can break or become obsolete. 
The files themselves must be continually managed, and their longevity and costs 
are unpredictable. For example, the average life of a Web site is between 44 
and 100 days. Items at risk include e-mail, computer files, storage media, digital 
photographs, e-books, and e-journals. Some options and considerations include 
saving data in a variety of open, widely available formats; saving multiple copies 
to a variety of media and keeping them in different locations; transferring or 
migrating data to new formats and media as they become available; and printing 
documents with high-quality ink and paper. 
The Library of Congress, “Did You Know? Some Interesting Facts About Digital Media,” www.digitalpreservation.gov/ 
didyouknow/index.html, October 10, 2007.