feb05_ff.indd


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

Pell Grants 
Due to an update in the way the U.S. Department of Education calculates eli­
gibility for Pell Grants, more than one million low­income students could face 
reductions in their federal aid. About 1.2 million students would receive reduced 
Pell Grants and about 90,000 would lose Pell Grant eligibility entirely. 
Liane Hansen. “Low-income students facing reductions in federal aid,” Weekend Edition Sunday, National Public Radio 
(NPR), December 19, 2004. 

New and emerging occupations 
According to the Occupational Employment Statistics division of the Bureau 
of Labor Statistics, in 2001, most new and emerging occupations were in fi rms 
with fewer than 100 employees. No single industry dominated the creation and 
growth of these occupations. Slightly more than half of all new and emerging 
occupations were paid in a range of $8.50 to $17 per hour. Among the emerg­
ing occupations in the field of education are school diagnosticians, distance 
learning coordinators, and home­school liaisons. 
Jerome Pikulinski, “New and emerging occupations,” Monthly Labor Review, December 2004. www.bls.gov/opub/ 
mlr/2004/12/ressum1.pdf. December 28, 2004. 

Search for extraterrestrial intelligence 
“The SETI Institute predicts that we’ll detect an extraterrestrial transmission within 
twenty years.” A new telescope array consisting of 350 6.1­meter radio dishes 
networked into a large, sensitive radio telescope will speed up the SETI search 
by a factor of 100. “The recent discovery of planets around many nearby stars 
is a strong argument that our solar system isn’t really unique at all,” says Jack 
Welch, UC Berkeley professor of electrical engineering and astronomy. 
David Pescovitz, “Listening for ET,” Lab Notes, Volume 4, Issue 9, December 2004. www.coe.berkeley.edu/labnotes/1204/ 
welch.html. January 3, 2005. 

lib.unc.edu 

C&RL News January 2005  160 

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

Best free reference Web sites of 2004 
The Machine­Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of the Reference and User 
Services Association (RUSA) of ALA has compiled a list of 30 best free refer­
ence Web sites. The list includes the American Association of Retired Persons, 
History Matters, Math Forum, Science Daily Magazine, and the Valley of the 
Shadow. The URL is below. 
“Best Free Reference Web Sites 2004 Sixth Annual List,” American Library Association. 
www.ala.org/ala/rusa/rusaourassoc/rusasections/mars/marspubs/MARSBestRef2004.htm. January 3, 2005. 

Benefits of preschool 
The benefits of preschool, validated by several long­term tracking studies, are 
higher test scores, increased social skills, better classroom behavior, higher 
graduation rates, increased productivity, and less criminal behavior, W. Steven 
Barnett, director of the National Institute of Early Education Research, told 
attendees of Simba Information’s Ready To Learn: Opportunities in the Early 
Childhood Education Market Conference in his keynote address. 
“Preschool attendance promotes higher test scores, higher graduation rates and less criminal behavior, according to 
experts at Simba Information Conference,” Simba Information. November 4, 2004. www.simbanet.com/news/press/2004_ 
1104_simba.htm. December 19, 2004. 

http:lib.unc.edu
www.coe.berkeley.edu/labnotes/1204
www.bls.gov/opub