Michael HabibFirst, sorry for the tardiness of this issue. While I was late, this duty has helped remind me of what I love about blogging. With my recent and sudden move to a new country and a new job, I have been ignoring the Blogosphere. Editing the Carnival reminds me not of the joys of sharing my own ideas, but instead of the value of the communities and conversations that arise out of this media. As a submission based publication, the Carnival embodies the best qualities of this community and encourages contributions from readers as well as bloggers. I would encourage my readers, whether you blog or not, to send your contributions in to the Carnival. Next week is at Libraryola. Submissions can be made directly to chris(at)libraryola(dot)com. All this being said, it also forced me to attend to my aggregator, and I found a few I really should post a response to. Now for the submissions.
I am saving the earliest submission for last because it may be just a wee bit controversial with the Carnival’s regular readers. We have a few submissions this week by Connie Crosby: Blog by a Canadian Law Librarian. The first submission by Connie is a book review with commentary on a title of particular interest to bibliobloggers, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Connie gives a thorough summary of a book that discusses the effects of Web 2.0. Definitely a submission which reflects back on the nature of Carnival. Connie follows this submission up with a discussion of the Toronto Wiki Tuesdays meetup. There they discussed the same book. I was especially interested in this post for two reasons. First, I moved to Toronto a few weeks ago and am looking for ways to “socially network” in a face-to-face environment. Second is a great list of 8 things Connie learned about wikis at the meeting. I would defintily check out that list and just might be at the next meeting.
The next submission is also self reflective. In her post, The Murky Waters of Participation & Politeness, Jennifer at “Life as I Know It”, reflects on David Lee King’s post Inviting Participation in Web 2.0 in light of Mark Lindner’s post A rant and some hopes for the Carnival of the Infosciences. I really liked this post because it helps me understand the feelings that editing the Carnival has aroused in me.
On a lighter note, Jason at “Thus Spoke the Pragmatic Librarian” discussed problems with search engine relevancy rankings by sharing and analyzing some of the interesting searches that brought people to his blog. His post makes me wonder if search might work better with a if it were powered by a more collaborative and human touch.
Next is a post by Karen G. Schneider for the ALA TechSource Blog. She tackles IT and Sympathy. While it is a longer post that covers many issues, I would like to highlight her “‘strategery’ for IT planning by non-IT departments.” The strategy is roughly the second half of the essay.
In the next submission, Joy Weese Moll of “Wanderings of a Library Student”, describes the design and marketing of a high speed instruction style, Lightning Learning. The post gives the background, but you might also want to check out the website of the project. Joy is adding updates of how the sessions are going.
Before mentioning the controversial post, I want to add a few of my selections. First I wanted to remind everyone of the many posts covering Midwinter. The Midwinter Wiki links to bloggers covering the conference. While there are many wonderful posts I want to point out tat least one. Along with other coverage, Jane of “Wandering Eyre” blogged OCLC’s Blog Salon (includes a great picture). I also read a great post about why someone didn’t attend, but can’t find it. If you know the one I am speaking of, please let me know.
I can’t put it off any longer. John Swift writes a post on “Who Needs Books?” I don’t really know how to respond to this one. I leave that to you.
CORRECTION: This is Carnival #63, you can find #53 here:
http://librarygarden.blogspot.com/2006/09/carnival-of-infoscience-53-at-long.html
