feb10ff.indd


C&RL News February 2010  120

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

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

Academic library budgets
The results of a survey delivered at a recent Charleston Conference indicate 
that more than one-third of academic libraries have received budget cuts of at 
least 5 percent. In two years, about 31 percent of library leaders expect their 
total library budgets to shrink, while about 40 percent predict budgets will 
remain the same, and about 28 percent expect an increase. More than half of 
respondents said they would accelerate the shift to e-only resources. Libraries 
in North America indicated they spent 25.5 percent of their budgets on print 
books; 25.3 percent on databases; 44 percent on print and electronic serials; 
and 5.2 percent on e-books.
Norman Oder, “Study: In Downturn, Academic Libraries To Focus on Value, ROI,” Library Journal, November 5, 2009 
[cited November 9, 2009]. Available from www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6705634.html.

Best of the best-of lists
Looking for that special best-of-2009 list? Fimoculous.com collects them all. 
Hundreds of lists in 38 categories from “advertising” to “words” are organized 
and linked to dozens of media sources. Currently there are 86 best-of lists 
in the “books” category, aggregating sources such as The Atlantic, The Wall 
Street Journal, The New Yorker, Amazon, The Economist, and more. The site 
maintains linked lists back to 2001.
Fimoculous.com [cited January 6, 2010]. Available from www.fi moculous.com/year-review-2009.cfm.

Academic Libraries: 2008
The “Academic Libraries: 2008 First Look” report summarizes services, staff, 
collections, and expenditures of academic libraries in two- and four-year 
degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the United States. The nation’s 
3,827 academic libraries held 1,052,531,290 books, serial backfi les, and other 
paper materials, including government documents at the end of FY 2008. 
There were 138.1 million circulation transactions from their general collec-
tions. About 22 million documents were lent or borrowed from other libraries 
and commercial services. The libraries employed 93,438 full-time equivalent 
staff. Two hundred and twenty-six academic libraries held 1 million or more 
books, serial backfi les, and documents. In 2008, academic libraries’ expendi-
tures totaled $6.8 billion.
T. Phan, L. Hardesty, C. Sheckells, and D. Davis (2009), “Academic Libraries: 2008 (NCES 2010–348),” National Center 
for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Washington, D.C. [cited January, 
2010]. Available from nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010348.pdf.

Pearltrees
Pearltrees is a collaborative network that let users create, enrich, and share 
the world of their interests with an intuitive graphical interface. “We call it a 
human-powered interest network because its content is made and organized by 
its community. Use Pearltrees to keep at hand the contents you fi nd everyday 
on the Web, to discover new content from people who share your interests, to 
drive them through your own Web and contribute to the fi rst human-powered 
organization of the Web.”
pearltrees, www.pearltrees.com [cited December 8, 2009].