Welcome to the August 20, 2007 edition of Carnival of the Infosciences. Thanks to everyone who submitted stuff and all the others who asked me what the heck I was talking about. We got a huge response regarding this guide and I think allowing submissions via del.icio.us has helped participation somewhat (thought I think of carninfo being for information about meat!) go social software! Speacial thanks to Chad who really did most of the heavy lifting this time around as I tried to figure out how it all worked.
WoodyE presents Tragedy of the Library posted at What You Already Know, saying, “Public libraries lining up for a ‘tragedy of commons’?”
Katie Dunneback sent us Open letter to incoming LIS students posted at Young Librarian.
Chris Zammarelli, a long time friend and supporter of the Carnival, presents Good blogs, bad blogs posted at Walt at Random, saying, “While writing about research he’s performing for his next book, Walt outlines what makes for good and bad library blogs.”
Chris submits Keeping up posted at Blisspix.net, saying, “Some advice from Fiona Bradley about keeping up with the library literature.”
Chris also shares This Just In: ILL is Important! posted at Circ and Serve, saying, “Mary Carmen Chimato reviews an Association of Research Libraries about ILL.”
Holly directs Carnival readers to And did we tell you the name of the game, boy? We call it riding the gravy train posted at The Gap, saying, “A neat story about a patron who did a display of his videogames and consoles at the Joplin (MO) Public Library. Blurb from the library’s website”
Jeanne Kramer-Smyth shares Preserving Virtual Worlds – TinyMUD to SecondLife posted at SpellboundBlog.com, saying, “Thanks for taking a look and considering this for the Carnival of InfoSciences!”
Ellyssa Kroski invites us to peruse A Guide to Twitter in Libraries posted at iLibrarian, saying, “I recently started blogging over at iLibrarian and I thought you and your readers might find this post useful.”
Connie Crosby, another strong supporter of the Carnival of the Infosciences, presents The King, the Babe and the Books posted at Slaw, saying, “Post by Mark Lewis, Reference/Information Technology Librarian, Sir James Dunn Law Library, Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He marks the anniversary of a fire at the Dunn Law Library with a post including some spectacular (or rather, disturbing) photos from the fire 22 years ago. SLAW is a co-operative blog discussing Canadian law and technology.”
Additionally, Connie suggests Law Firms & Content Strategy posted at Law Firm Web Strategy, saying, “Steve Matthews, recently Information Director at law firm Clark Wilson, has just started his own consulting firm and with it a new blog called Law Firm Web Strategy. His posts to date are quite smart, so it is difficult to choose just one. I have selected this one because he discusses an analysis he did of the websites of the top 100 U.S. law firms, and lessons learned from this analysis. Steve’s blog is one to watch for anyone interested in search engine optimization (SEO), marketing, and law firm management.”
Connie also recommends Thoughts After Library Camp NYC posted at YALSA, saying, “I like Linda Braun’s summary of Library Camp NYC earlier this week.”
Romeo Vitelli presents Burning the Library posted at Providentia, saying, “Book-burning, the Nazi way”. We are very happy to have this submission from someone outside the LIS field, but who cares enough about libraries to write about them. Way to go Doc!
And now for the submissions we received through del.icio.us. We had a good number tagged with “carninfo” this week. Don’t forget to add a note when you tag so we can share why you thought the post was worth including.
Emily Alling (bibliomonstra) tagged “The New Librarians”, an article from T.H.E. Journal on the changing roles of school librarians, and suggested that this piece would be “great to share with administrators, board members, teachers, parents, and anyone who might not be up to speed on the new face of school libraries”.
RoseFireRising suggested that we read “The Scientific Research Potential of Virtual Worlds” (abstract), published in Science 27 July 2007: 472-476., saying “”virtual worlds may foster scientific habits of mind better than traditional schools can, because they constantly require inhabitants to experiment with unfamiliar alternatives, rationally calculate probable outcomes, and develop complex theoretical …”. This article requires a subscription.
Also tagged by Rose, we have “Virtual Worlds, Real Leaders”, and she says, “This intriguing report focuses on similarities in the psychology of World of Warcraft and other virtual worlds in building corporate leadership skills. Changes are recommended in corporate management to make it more like successful games.”
Jenna Freedman tagged “Return of the Zine Yearbook” and tells us that this post is a, “Discussion of a zine anthology and amassing of power by Microcosm, a zine distro and publisher and how this affects (should affect?!?) libraries. Recommendations of other zine distros. Includes one snarky comment by a fellow librarian and zine publisher.” Hooray for snarky comments.
Martha Hardy (grasshopperlibr) submitted “We Asked for 2.0 Libraries and We Got 2.0 Librarians” and asks, “Is the collective Library 2.0 venture a raging success, a waste of time, or a successful work in progress? What does it mean to be a Librarian 2.0? Ryan Deschamps aptly sums it up for us on The Other Librarian”.
Martha also tagged “The Book-ish-ness of Books” and says, “What is a book? And how much does the format matter? The Pegasus Librarian says, in part: “The point is that “containers†are not entirely benign. If they were entirely benign, people wouldn’t pour ginger ale from the can to the glass.”
And speaking of the Pegasus Librarian,Iris Jastram submits “A Study of Scanning Habits”, where the future of books, ebooks, and the format in general are discussed.
Thar’s it for this week! Tara E. Murray will be hosting the next edition of the Carnival at DIYLibrarian. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of the infosciences using our carnival submission form. You can also use the del.icio.us tag carninfo to submit your favorites. Make sure to use the “Notes” field to state why you tagged it and sign your name so we know who shared it with us. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
An impressive entry. The first one is troubling, though: If a library employee really believes that people pay “a buck or two a year” for library services, they need to do a little checking–unless they’re in a very odd situation. Can you even run a library with any non-volunteer staff on less than $10 per capita? (Around here, public libraries with more than $100 per cap funding aren’t all that unusual, although certainly not the norm.)
The pictures of the Sir James Dunn Library are amazing, the story of that fire is something one ought not graduate from Dalhousie SIM without hearing. Amazing photos from Mark.
Jessamyn,
Thanks so much for hosting this week. I appreciate your taking the time to work with me on this. I think this was a good time for you to host since the response and submissions are really high right now. A positive harbinger I believe. Great work!
Thanks, Jessamyn. Wow! Lots of response; this was a lot of work. I am working my way through the links. Thanks to everyone who contributed, too. :-)
Cheers,
Connie
Sorry to get a response in so late. I wrote the “Tragedy of the Library.” Thank you for the traffic. When I mentioned a buck or two a year, I was speaking of direct contribution of property taxes that make it to the library.
I was not speaking of the entire operating costs (grants, state funding, etc.) of the library. Really, though, this is far beside the point. Even at $100 per capita, this is still an amount small enough from which to form the same argument. While even though these people surely contribute to these other forms of funding, the greater burden is carried by those who do not benefit most from their libraries.