Nicole Engard invites you to celebrate her 350th post, which manifests itself in the form of Carnival of the Infosciences #39. I like seeing new names in the submission mix. It’s interesting how the number of submissions remains small but steady, while the names behind the submissions continue to change and evolve.

Next week, the Carnival returns to Christina’s LIS Rant. I imagine an email to cpikas {at} gmail {dot} com will work for submissions.

The James J. Hill Reference Library describes itself as “a world-class collection of practical business information resources and is considered one of the most comprehensive business libraries in the country.” It is now also a podcasting library. I can’t find anything about it on the main website, but the podcast feed showed up on Podcast Alley. Enclosed programs include “The Secret to Securing Venture Capital,” “Perfecting Your Pitch, Maximizing Influence,” and “Why China (And why not, too).”

Thanks to a thread on the Bibliocasting listserv, I learned the Cornell University’s Mann Library is now podcasting their events. The Mann Library primarily supports the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Human Ecology, and the Division of Nutritional Sciences, so expect the programs to have some connection therein. They offer both an audio feed and a video feed.

Just a quick note to mention that the first part of my two-part session for the SirsiDynix Institute is now available online, linked here in mp3 format. Those of you subscribed to my podcast feed should receive it automatically.

You can also view the slides and audio together in the recorded LiveMeeting.

Part two live tomorrow at 11 AM EDT.

Another excellent collection of sights and sounds (well, sights at least) has been made available for your perusal at the Carnival of the Infosciences #38, courtesy of Library Garden. I enjoyed Rick Roche’s old -school congrunt in particular.

Next week’s Carnival will be hosted at What I Learned Today. Send submissions to nengard at gmail dot com. Please include the word Carnival in the subject line.

We welcome a new host to the traveling festivities as Chadwick Seagraves invites you to InfoSciPhi for the Carnival of the Infosciences #37. An excellent and diverse assortment of submissions this week. Kudos to Chadwick for a job well done.

Next week, the Carnival heads over to the Library Garden. Send your submissions early and often to janieh [at] gmail dot com.

From the PLA Blog comes word that BookExpo America will be offering a BookExpoCast for the first time this year. From the site: “With these free podcasts you will be able to hear publishing leaders discuss how new Internet tools are changing the book business. You will hear “Upfront & Unscripted” — intimate one-on-one interviews with publishing, Web and marketing gurus. You will hear from your favorite authors and speakers. And, our roving pod-reporter will find out from attendees and industry experts what’s the “Buzz at BEA” - a buzz that often sets the book-buying agenda for the year.

Sounds promising. Here’s a link to the feed.

Just read on Lifehacker that Skype is offering its SkypeOut service, which allows you to make VoIP calls to a landline, free of charge until the end of 2006. Sadly, the offer is only good for calls placed and received in the USA or Canada, but for those folks this is fabulous news and a great excuse to check out Skype, if you haven’t already.

Another good reason is the new SkypeCast feature, which is currently in the preview stage. SkypeCasts are big hosted, public conference calls of up to 100 people that anyone with the Skype client can host for free. You can host SkypeCasts on any topic, but they are public calls, so they will be directory-listed and open to anyone. As host, you can choose open discussion or a one-way broadcast (with the ability to “pass the mic” to others), which opens up a variety of ways to do teleconferencing on the cheap. I’ve had good experiences with SkypeCasts so far and hope to see some librarians take advantage.

So there’s this seemingly excellent bootcamp going on at ALA regarding Library 2.0. I say seemingly because I’m only observing it from the outside looking in. As part of this bootcamp, there is a site specifically devoted to Library 2.0 Podcasts.

*steps on soapbox*

What do we find on this site? A series of posts containing audio and video accessible only by using in-browser players; that is, there’s no way to download the files (with one exception).

Paul Pival had this to say about it in a comment: “I’d sure like to download and listen to this at my leisure rather than be chained to my desk to hear it - would you please include a link to a downloadable mp3 file for this and future “podcasts”? :-)”

But I figured there was hope, since I could see the word “Syndicate” prominently featured at the top of the sidebar. Optimistic, I clicked on the Syndicate link at the top of the page. Guess what, folks? Not a podcast feed! Not an enclosed media file to be found. On a page purportedly about podcasts. Huh?

Now I’ve been following just closely enough to remember that they told everyone to head over to iTunes and search for Library 2.0 to find and subscribe to the podcast.

In fact, here’s the quote: “All of the multimedia materials for the program will be delivered via podcasting. All of the podcasts will be posted to a podcast weblog where they can be viewed. But you can also access the RSS feed for these podcasts through iTunes. Just go to the music store and search for Library2.0 and you’ll find the feed. If you click subscribe, each new podcast will be automatically downloaded into your desktop iTunes when it is posted. You can also paste the url into your iTunes using the “Subscribe to Podcast” under the advanced menu.”

Huh? What URL? I don’t see any URL and you’re not going to find one simply by searching for Library2.0 at iTunes. Apple simply does not make it that easy to avoid using iTunes by making the podcast feed URL readily identifiable. They want you to click that shiny Subscribe button instead and stayed locked into their product.

Fortunately, for those of you who might actually be interested in getting automatic downloads of this content outside of iTunes, I just happen to know where to go digging for an actual podcast feed. So here it is: http://alal2.audioblog.com/rss/ala-library-2_0-podcast.xml.

But why do I have to go to iTunes to figure that out, when there is a podcast blog?! Why would you make it so darned difficult to access and use content in the ways end-users might actually prefer, when you are going out of your way to use multimedia content in the first place? That doesn’t seem at all Library 2.0 to me.

*steps off soapbox*

That said, there’s some interesting content, including Meredith Farkas’ first foray into podcasting, which I would have to deem a success by any measure.

Update: Just want to note that there is some activity to resolve the issues I’ve raised here. You will now find downloadable files on the right sidebar of the Library 2.0 Podcasts page. Thanks to Michael for taking up the cause.

Update 2: A better solution has been reached. There is now a separate Blogger blog devoted to the podcasts and a Feedburner podcast feed. Kudos to Jenny and Michael for arresting control of that situation.