may08ff.indd


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

Browser wars 
According to NetApplications.com, Microsoft Internet Explorer has almost 75 
percent of Web browser market share, followed by Firefox at about 18 percent. 
Safari, Opera, Netscape, and Mozilla combined make up only about 7 percent 
of the browser market. Current trends indicate Firefox on the rise and Internet 
Explorer on the decline. 
Browser Market Share, marketshare.hitslink.com/. April, 2008. Accessed April 15, 2008 

Public Access to Science 
Authors of research reports that describe work supported by National Institutes 
of Health (NIH) are now required to deposit accepted manuscripts into PubMed 
Central, NIH’s public digital library of full­text articles, with the understanding 
that the articles will be freely available for all to view no later than 12 months 
after publication. NIH­supported investigators publish about 80,000 papers 
each year. 
H. Varmus (2008). Progress toward Public Access to Science. PLoS Biol 6(4): e101 dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060101, 
April 8, 2008. Accessed April 9, 2008 

Spring commencement speakers 
Here is a selection of speakers scheduled for commencement exercises this 
spring: Oliver Sacks, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; Will Shortz, Indiana Uni­
versity­Bloomington; John Kerry, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts; Bianca 
Jagger, Simmons College; Allen Weinstein, Southern Methodist University; James 
Fallows, Ursinus College. 
The Chronicle of Higher Education, Commencement Speaker Database, April 15, 2008. chronicle.com/free/speakers/ 
Accessed April 15, 2008 

Writing skills 

unc.edu 

C&RL News May 2008  300 

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

The writing skills of eighth­ and twelfth­graders improved in 2007 compared to 
earlier assessment years. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 
eighth­graders scored 3 points higher than in 2002 and 6 points higher than 
in 1998. For 12th­graders, the percentage of students performing at or above 
the basic level increased from 74 percent in 2002 to 82 percent and was also 
higher than in 1998. 
D. Salahu-Din, H. Persky, and J. Miller (2008). The Nation’s Report Card: Writing 2007 (NCES 2008-468). National Center 
for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, Washington, D.C. nces.ed.gov 
/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2008468. Accessed April 15, 2008 

BlogPulse 
BlogPulse is an automated trend discovery system for blogs. It includes a blog 
search engine that also analyzes and reports on daily activity. The site has a 
number of tools for analyzing trends and conversations. One popular feature 
is the ability to instantly create graphs that plot “buzz” about specifi c search 
terms over time. 
www.blogpulse.com. Accessed April 13, 2008 

http:marketshare.hitslink.com
http:NetApplications.com