I am pleased to announce that Chadwick Seagraves has stepped up to grab the torch of Carnival administration. I'm optimistic that he will bring fresh energy to the cause. Check out his introductory post. My thanks to Chadwick and all participants in Carnivals past, present and future.

A dearth of submissions couldn't stop TangognaT from creating a click-worthy Carnival of the Infosciences #56.

Next week, the Carnival returns to David's Random Stuff. Submissions should be sent to dwfree(at)gmail.com with Carnival in the subject line.

Again, I find myself without a host for the following week. If you've contacted me about wanting to host, but haven't pinned down a date yet, now would be a great time to drop me a line. Repeat hosts (and first-timers) are welcome!

Chris Zammarelli invites you over to Libraryola to check out the Carnival of the Infosciences #55. Many thanks and kudos to Chris for his efforts.

And many thanks are also due to our next host, TangognaT, who came forward at the last moment to save the Carnival from hostlessness. Please direct your submissions to tangognat @ tangognat.com.

In other news, another conference season appears to be upon us. I'll be heading to two events in October. First, the Polaris Users Group Annual Meeting in Syracuse and then a return to Monterey for Internet Librarian.

I'm particularly looking forward to Syracuse as it marks my start in a new position within my current organization. Without saying too much, I'll be heading into the illustrious world of IT management. Wish me luck.

Will I see any of you in Syracuse? I know I'll see many of the usual suspects (and some new faces) in Monterey.

Oh yeah, anyone feel like hosting a Carnival? Drop me a line.

Thanks to Michael Casey for hosting the Carnival of the Infosciences #54 over at LibraryCrunch.

Next week, the Carnival moves to Libraryola. Submissions go to chris@libraryola.com with "Carnival" in the subject line.

There is, at present, no one to host the Carnival the following week. Volunteers are appreciated.

Guess I have a little catching up to do, but sometimes vacation is just plain necessary, right?

So here's what you may have missed:

Carnival of the Infosciences #51 over at David's Random Stuff

Carnival of the Infosciences #52 over at Grumpator

and the current edition: Carnival of the Infosciences #53 at Library Garden

I humbly thank all of these fine hosts for their efforts.

Next week, the Carnival makes its first appearance over at LibraryCrunch. Mr. Casey has not put up his introductory post yet, but I'm sure submissions sent to michael [AT] librarycrunch.com will do just fine.

I'm getting tight on Carnival hosts again, so if you have the inkling, drop me a line. Here's a link to the hosting guidelines.

So here it is: Carnival of the Infosciences #50 over at 'Brary Web Diva. Thanks to Kelli for making it happen despite the complete lack of submissions.

Carnival #51 will be hosted at David's Random Stuff. David welcomes your submissions emailed to dwfree{at}gmail.com with 'Carnival' in the subject line.

Head on over to Connie Crosby's blog to take in the Carnival of the Infosciences #49. Connie has taken the Carnival presentation to the next level, so I strongly encourage a visit.

Next week is the big 5-0. The honor falls to Kelli Staley over at 'Brary Web Diva. Submissions go to nomextra[at]sbcglobal[dot]net.

As always, I'm seeking hosts. Many thanks to those who already have taken their turn (and who are welcome to reprise the role). First-timers welcome! Here are the guidelines.

Michelle McLean invites you over to Connecting Librarian for the Carnival of the Infosciences #48. Good stuff. I recommend checking out the GrrlScientist post on the Archimedes Palimpsest.

Next week, the Carnival is scheduled to be hosted by Connie Crosby. There's no intro post on her blog as of yet, so if you want to send submissions to me via the contact form, that'd be just fine.

Thanks to Woody over a ISHUSH for hosting the Carnival of the Infosciences #47. Pretty light on submissions again. Any suggestions on what we might do to encourage participation?

Next week, the Carnival heads down under again, this time visiting the home of the Connecting Librarian. Send submissions (please?) to tango@michevan.id.au.

Thanks to Eric Schnell for hosting Carnival of the Infosciences #46 over at The Medium is the Message. It was originally listed as #47, but again, we skipped 4th of July, so everyone who was scheduled dropped down one.

I'm disappointed that the Public Libraries coverage of the Carnival hasn't resulted in more submissions, but we plod onward nevertheless. Next up is Woody Evans over at ISHUSH. No intro post yet, so why not take advantage of the handy Blog Carnival submission form.

Bill Drew invites you over to Baby Boomer Librarian to take in the Carnival of the Infosciences #45. Thanks to Bill for his hosting efforts.

Next week, we welcome another new host as Eric Schnell of The Medium is the Message takes the helm. Please send your posts to eric.schnell [at] gmail.com with the word "Carnival" in the subject line.

As usual, I'm in need of hosting volunteers. I was looking at the upcoming schedule for the Carnival of Personal Finance, one of my favorites. Hosting is booked into March of next year. We're good for, well, another four weeks. Here are some guidelines for hosting, in case you're curious.

Head on over to InfoTangle and check out Carnival of the Infosciences #44. Thanks to Ellyssa for hosting.

Note that at the time of this entry, Ellyssa's post says #45. This is plainly my fault as I forgot to change the Carnival numbering to account for the skipped week.

Anyway, next week's Carnival, the real #45 (and propagating my error by claiming to be #46), will be hosted by Bill Drew over at Baby Boomer Librarian. Send submissions to drewwe@morrisville.edu.

Well, rather than celebrate freedom for a single day, I've been shooting for longer-term independence...from my computer. And wouldn't you know it, it's working. More time for my son, my wife, my sleep cycles, my reading habits, exercise (not nearly enough, but some is more than none). On the flip-side, less time for feeds, podcasts (although the commute provides ample time for that, I'm trying to mix in more music with my relentless "content consumption") and blogging.

Some time ago, I wrote about trying to reduce the number of subscribed feeds in my Bloglines login. It was at 220+ when I wrote that and I got it as low as 160. I am experiencing a bit of what I will call "feed creep" as that number has quietly climbed back to 174, largely due to my recent interest in Second Life.

Second Life was actually a big part of my need for independence. I found it totally consuming and I struggled to find balance between my so-called "first life" and this highly immersive and engaging environment. Initially unable to do so, I fled. And now I am hesitant to return, greatly enjoying my new-found freedom.

But while I battle my computing demons, the Carnival rolls on. Anali has Carnival of the Infosciences #43 waiting for you over at Grumpator. We took a break this week, but next week, the Carnival travels for the first time to InfoTangle. Ellyssa would love to get your submissions for next week by this Sunday at 6 PM. Send them to ellyssakroski (at) yahoo.com. Since there was no Carnival this week, consider the past two weeks open for consideration.

By the way, did anyone notice the Internet Spotlight column in Public Libraries magazine for May/June? Many thanks to Mr. Cohen for drawing some much-needed attention to our little traveling show.

I now return you to the silence.

Just back from vacation and popping in to highlight the most recent Carnivals:

Carnival of the Infosciences #41 at Ruminations

and

Carnival of the Infosciences #42 at ...the thoughts are broken...

Thanks to CW and Mark for their efforts. Next Carnival will be at Grumpator. Send submissions to anali[dot]perry[at]gmail[dot]com.

The Carnival of the Infosciences #40 awaits you at Christina's LIS Rant. A nice selection this week, including an effort to put some science in the infosciences. And a heartfelt "Mazel Tov!" to Steven and family.

Next week's Carnival will be hosted at Ruminations. No post yet from our fearless host, but I imagine an email to flexnib at gmail dot com will do the trick.

While I'm here, I should note that I will be going on vacation at the end of this week, so things will be even quieter than usual for a bit.

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.

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.

If you haven't already, please stop by The Industrial Librarian for the Carnival of the Infosciences #36. Thanks to Dave Hook for putting together this week's collection.

Next week, the Carnival travels to newcomer InfoSciPhi. Please send your submissions to chadwick[at]infosciphi.info.

I need hosting volunteers. We're good for just a few more weeks, but then the calendar is wide-open. I've really appreciated the spirit of volunteerism that has pervaded the Carnival hosting thus far. Let's keep it up. Newcomers strongly encouraged; oldtimers always welcome. Check the wiki for details.

Head on over to blogwithoutalibrary.net for the Carnival of the Infosciences #35. Nice assortment of submissions this week.

Next week's Carnival will be hosted by Dave Hook over at The Industrial Librarian. Send submissions to davehook at rogers dot com.

Steven Cohen invites you over to his blog to visit the Carnival of the Infosciences #34. I can't imagine why I never submitted any of my posts over at the Second Life Library 2.0 blog from this past week. Probably because I haven't left Second Life long enough to think of things like that. Warning: If you are thinking about checking out Second Life, it is a big, wonderful vacuum for your time.

Next week's Carnival will be at blogwithoutalibrary.net. Send submissions to amanda AT blogwithoutalibrary.net.

Another Monday, another Carnival, this time courtesy of my buddy Charlton Braganza over at ReferenceWORK. This week's Carnival even features me drooling. Read for yourself.

Next week's the Carnival returns to Library Stuff, where Steven will enter the revered ranks of the three-time host. Since he hasn't posted yet, why not use his contact form for your submissions?

Monday means another journey to Carnival-land. Head on over to TangognaT for the Carnival of the Infosciences #32. Good to see some new names in the mix of submissions this week. Does this mean we'll have some new hosting volunteers? How about some old ones?

Next week's Carnival will be hosted by over at ReferenceWork. No intro post yet, but I imagine that you can send submissions to reference.work[at]gmail.com, as listed on the site. Or feel free to use the Blog Carnival submission form.

Truck on over to Tinfoil + Raccoon for the Carnival of the Infosciences #31. Thanks to Rochelle for another great festival. And if you haven't checked out Intuitive Revelations yet, you need to...now.

Next week's Carnival will be hosted over at TangognaT. No post over there yet, so send submissions to me and I'll make sure they get where they need to go.

Update: Send submissions to tangognat @ tangognat.com.

Do you wish to be branded an official Carnival carny? Kelli Staley has your solution:

Kelli recommends stealing it from her site at http://www.kellistaley.com/images/carnival.jpg

She also recommends linking it to the Blog Carnival page. That's a reasonable choice, but I might recommend the Carnival wiki page as an alternative. Quite frankly, I think I update it in a more timely fashion. But y'all do with your badge whatever makes y'all happy.

Thanks to Kelli for making the badge!

Step right up and prepare for the mind-altering experience that is the Carnival of the Infosciences #30.

This week we celebrate the cross-scheduling of conferences and the bipolar distribution of librarian mindpower. But first, a few submissions.

Amanda Robertson writes about the eternally important theme of proving the value of library and information services. I'd be interested in further explication of the gap between "finding information" and "aiding in the finding of information."

CW reports on the real "day in the life" of a librarian in her post entitled Keeping Up.

Steven Cohen decries the limited search skills and Google reliance of too many librarians in Back to Boolean? A Call For...Goodness Sake!

But if you really dig Google, Joy Weese Moll offers up some handy Google tips.

Steve Lawson was reading my mind when he suggested Sarah Houghton's post warning readers to Beware Ego Centric Conference Sessions. I agree...I'm not as interested in the minutiae of your library as you might think.

And then some editor selections:

Christina Pikas gives props to Brittanica for standing up for itself.

Michael Casey shares how an internal blog served a unique communication need for his new library branch in Communicating With Blogs.

Dorothea Salo points out that there is a right way and a wrong way to represent your company when giving a presentation.

Extending that premise, Lorcan Dempsey discusses the way in which presenters must now consider how bloggers serve to extend the presentation's audience.

Rather than link to summaries of individual sessions, here's some links to various overall impressions of CiL:

Meredith Farkas' CIL: Impressions

Amanda Etches-Johnson's run-down, wrap-up, overall impressions

Michael Sauers' Conference Wrap-Up (as he states, he really is bad with names)

For some excellent summaries of individual sessions, I encourage you to check out the writing of Nicole Engard and Andrea Hull.

I haven't seen any noteworthy summaries of the PLA experience, although the sum total of all of the entries at the PLA blog do a nice job of conveying the good stuff. Instead, I will go back to Mr. Cohen and insist that you take a moment to read about the powerful experience of dining with Elie Wiesel at PLA.

Update: This was a late submission, but I had considered including it anyway, so go check out Madinkbeard's sketches from CiL. I'm amazed at how recognizable the people are. Why didn't the artist come to my session?!?!?

Next week's Carnival will be hosted at Tinfoil + Raccoon. Submissions should be sent via the Blog Carnival submission form.

Now inviting you to take a journey over to See Also... for a tour through the Carnival of the Infosciences #29, courtesy of Steve Lawson. A nice mix of submissions this week.

Next week, the Carnival travels to, um, well, actually it's coming back home to Open Stacks for a special post-CiL/PLA wrapup edition. So I'll be looking for all those great conference commentaries as well as anything else you might want to throw my way. Please use the contact form for your submissions this week.

As always, I welcome volunteers for hosting.

Now directing your attention to the Carnival of the Infosciences #28, courtesy of Rebecca Hedreen at Frequently Answered Questions. This week's edition is replete with a wonderful application of the Spell with flickr tool.

Next week, the Carnival visits new ground over at Steve Lawson's See Also... blog. Please send your submissions to slawson@coloradocollege.edu.

I also want to take this opportunity to highlight Liz Burns' post about Carnivals over at Pop Goes the Library, where she highlights the upside of looking at Carnivals outside of the LIS sphere. I second that emotion and recommend glancing at the Blog Carnival website as a solid starting point for your exploration.

It's great to have a friend like Steven Cohen. Not only is he willing to sign up for repeated Carnival hosting gigs, he's willing to tell you to do the same. Gotta love him.

Anyway, he also does a wonderful job presenting the Carnival of the Infosciences #27. Nice to see some new folks submitting entries and thus adding to our pool of potential hosts.

Next week, the Carnival returns to Frequently Answered Questions, where Rebecca Hedreen would love to see your entries on distance learning, academic libraries or anything else library-related that suits your fancy. She gives you a litany of contact options under Getting Help, but I'm sure an email to hedreenr1 [at] southernct [dot] edu will get the job done.

Another excellent blog-venture is waiting for you at the Carnival of the Infosciences #26, this week hosted over at Data Obsessed. Many thanks to Amanda for taking a turn at the helm of the Carnival mothership.

And so we return to Mr. Senior Librarian himself, Steven Cohen, for next week's Carnival over at Library Stuff. I'm sure he will remember to open the floor for submissions soon, but in the meantime, I'm sure he won't mind if you sent him a submission or two to stevenmcohen [at] gmail [dot] com. In fact, I imagine he'll thank you for it...and so will I.

Mark Lindner is definitely a nominee for Most Valuable Carnival Host. Check out his work at the Carnival of the Infosciences #25. Mark takes a single submission (Thank you, Steve!), rolls it in honey and makes a big ball of sticky liblog goodness out of it. I really enjoyed his admission that "I'm not even sure what Andrea is talking about at points." I laughed because I felt the same way after my first reading of her post "On Tagging People." It's a worthy read though.

Next week, the Carnival welcomes Amanda Robertson as host over at Data Obsessed. Please (pretty please? I hate to beg, but we're hitting rock bottom on the submissions) send your submissions to amanda [at] renji [dot] org by Sunday at 6 PM.

As always, I'm in need of hosts. New and prior hosts are welcome to inquire within via the contact form. Need more info?

Update: I completely forgot to give a big thanks to Blake for selecting the Carnival as one of his 10 Blogs to Read in 2006. Incidentally, there are many other reasons to thank Blake, so let me offer the following unsolicited testimonial: If you are looking for a quality, librarian-friendly webhost, you can do no better than Blake and LISHost. Just trust me on this one.

Anali's got some nifty exhibits waiting for you over at the Carnival of the Infosciences #24. If you podcast and haven't added yourself to the Podcasting Librarians frappr map, why the heck not?.

Next week's Carnival returns to ...the thoughts are broken... This will mark the third appearance of the Carnival there, making Mark the first three-time Carnival host. A proud distinction indeed. Send your submissions to mark[dot]lindner[at]insightbb[dot]com.

The revelry is in full effect at the Carnival of the Infosciences #23, courtesy of Brian, the Laughing Librarian. Brian really gets around the biblioblogosphere and beyond. And if you haven't watched the StrongBad cartoon yet, do it right now (choose "technology").

Next week's Carnival will be hosted at Grumpator. Brian suggests that there are submission instructions here, but Blogger is down for maintenance, so I can't confirm at present time.

Have I mentioned that I'm always interested in new hosts?

Please allow me to direct your attention to Carnival of the Infosciences #22, hosted this week by Nicole over at What I Learned Today...
If you only follow one link, check out the Google translation of Javier's piece. Priceless.

Bonus points go out to Steve Lawson for his post about the Carnival. I may not have mentioned this before, but our friends over at Blog Carnival offer a lovely RSS feed to alert you to the newest carnival installation.

Next week, the Carnival travels to The Laughing Librarian, where Brian is sure to wreak havoc with the Carnival paradigm. (No pressure.) Brian has a nice list of submission suggestions and requests that you use the Blog Carnival submission form for your submissions. So get 'em in!

Steve Bertrand from the Kankakee Public Library wrote me a few days ago in response to my rant about the misuse of the term podcast. Turns out KPL offers a genuine podcast feed where they are offering, amongst other content, a visit from Arlo Guthrie. Very nice.

Note: This is my first attempt at posting with the Performancing extension for Firefox.

I invite everyone to hop over to Infomancy and check out the Carnival of the Infosciences #21. Next week's Carnival will be hosted at What I Learned Today..., so get your submissions into Nicole: nengard at gmail dot com. Submissions were light last week, so let's get back in the Carnival spirit y'all!

And I'm always looking for hosts...

Seeking a thrill ride? Hop on over to TangognaT for the 20th installment of the Carnival of the Infosciences.

Next week, we welcome Chris Harris of Infomancy as the Carnival's host. He hasn't given specific instructions yet, but I imagine he'd like submissions to go to infomancy at gmail dot com.

Almost forgot to link to Joy's wonderful compilation of posts over at the 19th Carnival of the Infosciences. Nice to see a bunch of new names amongst the submissions. Next week, we welcome TangognaT to the hosting fold, so get your selections in to tangognat @ tangognat.com.

Kudos to Chris Deweese for his wonderful work on the Carnival of the Infosciences #18. Go check it out over at Clam Chowder.

The Carnival will take a break for the next couple of weeks. Activity will resume over at Wanderings of a Student Librarian in January. Carnival #19 will be posted on January 9th, so anything posted between now and then is submissible. Send submissions to joy at moll projects dot com.

Please take a moment and visit Carnival of the Infosciences #17, hosted by The Krafty Librarian. My thanks to the host and everyone who submitted this week.

Next week, the Carnival will be hosted by Chris Deweese over at Clam Chowder. Send submissions to chrisd at lcls dot org.

After that, the Carnival will take a two week hiatus for the holidays and return on January 9.

More info is available at the Carnival wiki.

OK, kids, we had a paltry two submissions for the Carnival over the past two weeks. That doesn't make for much of a festivity, now does it?

So let's try this again. Next week's Carnival will be hosted by The Krafty Librarian. Send your submissions to mak1173[at]yahoo[dot]com and mention the Carnival in the subject line. For the purposes of getting the ball rolling again, let's open the floor for any posts from the past few weeks.

As always, I'm still looking for hosts. Want to bring some much-deserved attention to your own blog? A great opportunity awaits you as host of your very own Carnival of the Infosciences.

In order to help keep track of the Carnival calendar, I set up a simple pbwiki with the schedule, along with the submission and hosting guidelines. Suggestions for other useful areas of content are welcome.

Carnival of the Infosciences #16 is now available, courtesy of Library Stuff's Steven Cohen. Thank you Steven!

The Carnival will be shut down next week to let all the Americans recover from the calorie consumption party that we call Thanksgiving. After that, the Carnival returns to Tinfoil + Raccoon. Expect the window for submissions to open next Monday.

Oh yes, I still need hosts, so get your volunteer hat on and drop me a line.

Another great stop for the Carnival of the Infosciences awaits you, courtesy of Xtine at Ask Nettie Day.

I'm looking forward to next week as we welcome Library Stuff's Steven Cohen as Carnival host. Send submissions to stevenmcohen [at] gmail [dot] com with something useful like "Carnival #16" in the subject line.

Update: Dang! I just realized I never published this post. Aargh!!!!!! My apologies to Xtine and Steven.

Hey y'all, submissions have been darned near non-existent this week for the Carnival, yet I've seen some pretty interesting stuff out there. So this is just a little post to goad you into submission (so to speak). Send your brilliant content to asknettieday at gmail dot com.

Kudos to Jill O'Neill for a great job on Carnival of the Infosciences #14. I enjoyed the thematic breakdown and pointers about podcasting.

Next week, we welcome another new host as the Carnival moves to Ask Nettie Day. Here is her floor-opening post. Send your submissions to asknettieday at gmail dot com with "Carnival #15" in the subject line.

Here's the next few weeks' worth of Carnival hosts:

And remember that I do maintain a complete list of past, present and future Carnival engagements.

Who else can I compel to rock the Carnival mic?

Let the triskaidekaphobes and Samhainophobes run in fear, it's time for the (un)lucky 13th edition of the Carnival of the Infosciences, just in time for Halloween. No tricks, just treats galore to Rochelle for a great job hosting this week.

I seem to have totally spaced out and forgotten to pursue hosts for the upcoming weeks. Next week is covered as the Carnival will be moving to the excellent Information Community News weblog. Send those submissions to jilloneill (at) nfais dot org.

After that, I'm wide open. Am I going to have to grovel to my previous hosts (always welcome and encouraged to host again of course!) or will some newcomers step up to the mic?

I'm devoting my energy to fighting illness right now, but let me take a moment to point out the wonderful work by Rebecca Hedreen on the twelfth installment of the Carnival of the Infosciences.

The next Carnival will be hosted over at Tinfoil + Raccoon. Send submissions to lisrochelle at gmail dot com.

You'll find another excellent installment of the Carnival of the Infosciences over at Christina's LIS Rant.

Next week, we welcome Rebecca Hedreen to the hosting fold. You'll find her over at Frequently Answered Questions.

Also worth noting, the folks over at Blog Carnival are maintaining a great master page that lists all of our past carnivals as well as the upcoming hosts. Better yet, there is a one-stop submission form that actually directs submissions according to the upcoming host's posted instructions. Thank you, Blog Carnival!

I'm delighted that the Carnival has survived into double digit editions. Jane at A Wandering Eyre has put together a wonderful collection of exhibits for this week's Carnival of the Infosciences. I am encouraged by the number of submissions made this week and expect everyone to keep it up and give the Carnival some much needed linkage.

Next up is Christina at Christina's LIS Rant, so get your submissions in to cpikas [at] gmail [dot] com.

In addition to the sites I added to the hosting schedule last week, we can now look forward to Carnival of the Infosciences #14, which will be hosted at the Information Community News weblog.

I continue my search for new hosts, while extending an invitation to all previous hosts to take another stab at it. Here are the guidelines for both hosting and submitting posts. If you ask nicely enough, I just might waive the submission requirement for hosting. ;-)

First, my thanks to Mark Lindner for another excellent Carnival of the Infosciences.

I'm also pleased to report that I've managed to fill the hosting schedule for at least another month. Thanks to everyone who stepped up to the plate. Here's a list of the upcoming Carnival hosts.

Who's up for November?!?!?

Kudos to Dave Hook for his work on Carnival of the Infosciences #8. Excellent job.

I'm also pleased to announce that Mark Lindner of ...the thoughts are broken... will be contributing his considerable hosting talents to Carnival of the Infosciences #9.

Mark and I are both of the opinion that it would be great to see new hosts, so please drop me a line if you're at all interested.

As I suspected, fatherhood has become my one and only activity outside of work. Thus blogging, podcasting and the like suffer. In fact, they disappear from the worldview altogether.

That said, the Carnival rolls on with or without me. Props to Mike Beccaria for an excellent hosting job on Carnival of the Infosciences #7.

Next week's Carnival will be hosted by Dave Hook over at The Industrial Librarian. I know I'm a bit late, but please send your submissions to dave at rogers dot com by Sunday at 6 PM Eastern time.

Let me turn our collective attention for a second to the future of the Carnival.

It seems to me that there was some initial enthusiasm and energy, which has since plateaued, even receded. I read occasional comment on how great an idea it is, but I haven't seen an increase in submitted posts or been able to recruit any new hosts since the original round of enthusiasts signed on. This is, of course, largely my own fault for not devoting adequate energy to fostering interest.

So anyway, after Dave's turn, I have a week without a host. I had anticipated taking this week myself, but current circumstances make that impossible. Can I compel anyone to host the week of October 3rd (or any week thereafter with the exception of October 10)?

Or should I be "seeing the forest for the trees" and cutting the cord on this whole Carnival enterprise? Are we just not the right community for this?

And before I try to take advantage of my son's all-too-rare nighttime sleepiness, let me steer you in the direction of the wonderful Carnival of the Infosciences #6, hosted by Mark Lindner over at ...the thoughts are broken... Thanks to Mark for hosting.

The next host is Mike Beccaria over at Mike's Musings. I've seen some good stuff this week, so I expect you to send your best to Mike via his contact form. Remember, submissions are due by Sunday at 6 PM Eastern time.

Just stopping in briefly to point you in the direction of the fifth Carnival of the Infosciences, hosted over at Christina's LIS Rant. Many thanks to Christina for taking on the hosting duties this week.

Next week's Carnival will be hosted by Mark Lindner at ...the thoughts are broken. Pretty please submit your posts via e-mail to mark dot lindner at insightbb dot com.

For those interested, Jackson is doing well, although he has earned himself the nickname Little Mister Fussypants. Mom is very tired. So is Daddy.

The fourth installment of the Carnival of the Infosciences is now up at lis.dom. Thanks to Laura for hosting.

Next week, the Carnival will be hosted at Christina's Library Rant. I implore you to submit your week's best via email to cpikas at gmail dot com.

This is a crucial period for the Carnival, where I think we will really see if this concept has legs or not. It won't work unless we have a critical mass of regular submissions. And I'll be the first to admit that I haven't held up my end of the bargain in that regard. Then again, fatherhood is pretty all-consuming. Anyway, please consider taking a moment to contribute to the Carnival. That's where the fun is.

You are hereby ordered to visit Carnival of the Infosciences #3, admirably hosted by Joy over at Wanderings of a Student Librarian. A wonderful selection of last week's finest.

Laura at lis.dom hosts next week's Carnival, as outlined here. This week's submissions should be sent to laura [at] newrambler [dot] net, following the submission and hosting guidelines.

Please spread the word. The potluck is better when everyone brings something on which to feast.

Welcome back to the midway, one and all!

Thanks to everyone who helped publicize the Carnival over the past week. Keep it up. More exposure means more submissions and more interesting things for you to read.

Before I get to the Carnival itself, a number of people suggested that I highlight the addition of the billionth holding to OCLC. So consider it highlighted.

Also, congratulations go out to lis.dom's Laura Crossett for being awarded Best Overall in the EFF's 15th Anniversary Blog-a-thon. It's great to see LIS writers being recognized for their talents and I strongly recommend visiting her victory post and her winning entry, The Medium is Not the Message.

And now for the fun stuff.

Laura Blalock, the Creative Librarian, invites us to stop by her booth and take a look at some of the factors that helped land her a job. There can be little doubt that appearance counts more than most people would like to admit.

Joy Weese Moll of Wanderings of a Student Librarian is putting together a list of MLS student bloggers.** If you are, or ever were, a blogging MLS student, perhaps you might drop Joy a line at joy at moll projects dot com.

Over at ...the thoughts are broken..., Mark Lindner is not sure how well suited his blog is for Joy's purposes, although he is most assuredly a student blogger. If you need further proof, take a look at his reading from this past week.

Moving from student bloggers to former student bloggers, Andrea Mercado over at LibraryTechtonics gives color commentary on her first Geek Out Don't Freak Out program. The sad reality is that I could benefit greatly from a class just like hers.

Wondering why all the fuss over OpenURL? Jane over at A Wandering Eyre offers her explanation of Open URL - What is it and why every librarian should know about it. Why? 1. It saves the time of the user. 2. It saves the time of the user. 3. No poofters! 4. It saves the time of the user.

Library clips' John T offers an extensive look at the ins and outs of Blog Ranking: Incoming Links?? That right, folks, my request for linkage to the Carnival is really a thinly veiled attempt to increase my blog ranking.

Free Range Librarian Karen Schneider has a two part series on the recent debacle at the US Copyright Office over web standards, or lack thereof. In part 1, she highlights the obvious problem with a government agency limiting functionality to a single browser, namely that everyone else is shafted. In part 2, she continues her love affair with the acronym, introducing us to the all-too-popular LGTM (Looks Good to Me) standard.

In addition to reading her EFF Blog-a-thon winning post, stop by lis.dom and read Laura Crossett's post on the agony and ecstasy of collection development entitled the anxiety of influence. I happen to enjoy weeding. Very cathartic. There, I admitted it.

Rochelle A. Mazar invokes Don McLean to express her distrust of the conclusions drawn from a recent survey of professors in A Generation Lost in Space. According to the results of the survey, professors think that the Internet makes students stupider and professors smarter. Wouldn't this be the same as if I stated that the Internet makes librarians smarter and patrons stupider?

Dave Hook, the Industrial Librarian, looks at doing the tasks that really matter and asks the question Are librarians doing too many clerical tasks? He writes in response to (and essentially in agreement with) a post by the :30 Librarian provocatively titled Why (Many) Medical Librarians Deserve to Lose Their Jobs.

And let us take a moment to welcome Charlton Braganza to the LIS blogosphere. At his new blog, ReferenceWork, he focuses on "Librarians concerned with Workforce Development." This week, he offers commentary on how the ReferenceUSA database can be a tool to aid patrons in their job searches. I can just imagine all you librarians job surfing at the reference desk under the guise of "learning the database."

OK, time for some Editor's Choices.

Dorothea Salo of Caveat Lector read the first Carnival and found Eric Lease Morgan's post on the technical skills of librarianship. She found it all right. She found it seriously lacking. As an alternative, she offers an approach called Learning How to Learn. [Note: It appears Caveat Lector is offline for the moment, so this link leads to a 404, at least for now. Sorry 'bout that.]

Christina Pikas offers her commentary on the barrier that separates the OPAC from our other web resources in Our Whole Model of Online Presence Needs to Be Changed.

Anne at the new hangingtogether.org blog offers her take on the tension between security and access in a post entitled Bazookas and Box Cutters.

And finally, there is an excellent series by Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti developing over at the TeleRead blog. The first part covers Copyright basics: Not so basic after all. This is followed by a look at the question Is "fair use" fair?


Thank you for visiting the Carnival of the Infosciences. Next week's Carnival will be hosted at Wanderings of a Student Librarian. Please send your submissions to joy at mollprojects dot com. Although email to the upcoming host is preferred, feel free to continue to use my contact form on an ongoing basis. I will simply forward submissions to the current host.

Here's the link to the submission and hosting guidelines. And here's a link to the hosting schedule. Please let me know if you have any interest in hosting or have any other comments or suggestions.

Previous Carnivals: Carnival of the Infosciences #1

** Joy may not have known that, when I started this humble blog back in March of 2003, I too was a student pursuing my MSLIS. Indeed, everything prior to May 23, 2003 is the work of a student. Of course, I'm really a lifelong student, but you know what I mean.

OK, people, it's Thursday evening and I have a very thin (but high quality) stack of submissions. C'mon, folks! The Carnival's only fun if everyone plays together. I know it's summer and you're not writing much, but you must have read something worth nominating, right? Just to make it as easy as possible for you RSS folks, here's another link to the contact form for your contributions. Thanks as always.

And so it begins. It gives me great pleasure to roll out the cotton candy machine, crank up the ferris wheel and present the inaugural Carnival of the Infosciences. We had a short stack of great submissions this week and they are presented below, along with my commentary. I have fleshed out the selection with a few choices of my own, which are presented at the bottom. My sincerest thanks to everyone who participated.

This past week's submissions are an auspicious beginning, but I hope we can get the Carnival to grow. From the excellent Carnival of Education:

"A successful carnival is a team effort. Please consider helping to spread the word. The more folks that know about this collection of exhibits, the more that will "drop-in" and visit the midway. Trackbacks, links, and mentions all help." So tell your friends. Know someone in LIS who just started blogging? Let them know that we're here and ready to shine the spotlight their way.

The Carnival will spend another week here at Open Stacks, so I hereby invite your submissions for Carnival of the Infosciences #2. Please send posts via the contact form by Sunday, August 14, no later than 6 PM Eastern time. Submission guidelines are here as are the hosting guidelines. I am always looking for more hosts! In fact, I can't wait for the Carnival to go on the road, so I can see more creative presentations than my own. Here's a link to the current hosting lineup.

And without further ado, let the carnival begin.



Our first post comes from Dave Hook, The Industrial Librarian, who tells us Why blogs & RSS feeds will help drive open-access journal publishing. He presents complementary scenarios that illustrate the potential impact of online access to journal articles on the readership of said work. Will this drive print journals to change their ways? I'd like to think so.

Joy Weese Moll over at Wanderings of a Student Librarian submits Part 1 of her MLS Success series entitled Learn to Learn. I only wish I had realized earlier that I, like Joy, have a high music intelligence. Better still if I had realized that I am not a visual learner prior to selecting Art History as an undergraduate course of study.

We then have a wonderful post from Meredith Farkas of Information Wants To Be Free entitled Online communities in a "locked down" society. The post's purpose is two-fold: first, to note the disconnect between the preponderance of online communities for librarians versus the total absence of librarian-facilitated online communities for the patrons we serve; second, to introduce the notion of the "community wiki" with the library playing the logical role of host and shepherd.

At Christina's LIS Rant, Christina Pikas asks the question Is blogging for personal information management generalizeable or just for some? That is, does blogging as PIM work uniquely well for information professionals or would the approach function equally as well for scientists or engineers? Interesting. I suspect that it is more inherent to the individual learning style than to the profession, such that there are both info pros and scientists for whom blogging wouldn't quite do it.

Rebecca Hedreen submits a slightly older post to the Carnival, but I've decided to be less restrictive in this first go-round. So I present for your consumption her comments on Wikipedia over at the Frequently Answered Questions blog. I wonder if the possible changes at Wikipedia will impact her opinion and that of so many others.

Building on the Wikipedia theme, Laura Crossett at lis.dom invites us to select resources by asking the tough question "What for and for what?" Where does appropriateness rank in the criteria for resource selection? Pretty high, I reckon.

Over at ...the thoughts are broken..., Mark describes the shock of discovering that his own neophyte cataloging work is now part of our collective bibliographic universe.

In her post The Digital Audiobook Divide, Jenny Levine gives a thoughtful explanation as to the importance of providing not only audiobooks, but the hardware needed to play them. It's all about access, as well it should be.

And finally, the Feel-good librarian shares the power of What books do. Also a powerful reminder of what librarians do.


Editor's Choices

On the LITA Blog, Eric Lease Morgan provides a useful list of the technical skills of librarianship for those looking to develop their technology skill sets.

Eric's post is nicely complemented by Karen Schneider, the Free Range Librarian, who wants all you technology instructors out there to remember that We're All Newbies Some of the Time.

George over at It's all good draws parallels between the problems facing the movie industry and those facing libraries in his post entitled "I am big. It's the pictures that got small...".

Keeping with the theme of parallels, Stephen Abram asks you to consider the similarities between The Store Window and Your Portal. Are there lessons to be learned from retail? Both in the digital and physical spaces?

Library Dust's Michael McGrorty, in his post Relics and Libraries, observes that the textbooks of his youth were conservative and weak when compared to the revolution awaiting him on the library's bookshelves.

Thanks for visiting the inaugural Carnival of the Infosciences. Please, please, send your comments and suggestions my way.

This is just a pre-weekend reminder to get those Carnival submissions to me no later than 6 PM Eastern time on Sunday.

C'mon kids, solicit some free exposure for your blogs. Have some confidence in the quality of your writing and share it with a broader audience. We have a great basis for the inaugural Carnival, but I'm greedy. I want more. If you need to see the submission guidelines again, you can find them here.

Thanks to those who've already submitted. Now go tell your friends!

Submissions for the first Carnival of the Infosciences have been trickling in, but there's plenty of room for more rides at this theme park. There was a question as to what was meant by the "current post" parameter for submission mentioned in this post. In my mind, the Carnival should highlight the best content of the previous week, so submitted posts should have been published in the same week in which they are being recommended. Let me know if that needs further clarification.

I'm going to use this post as a holding place for the schedule of upcoming carnivals. We've already scheduled a stellar line-up of hosts and I know other people will step up to the mic. Remember, if you're interested in hosting, you need to do things: 1. Submit a post to a carnival and 2. let me know that you're interested.

By a vote of 5-0, I officially declare the Carnival of the Infosciences to be open for business. If you missed the post where I proposed the idea, you can find it here.

So here's what I want you to do. Sometime over the course of the next week (from now until 6 PM next Sunday, August 7), choose one current post that best showcases your considerable writing talent and send me the link via the comment form. If you are not a blog author, or didn't write anything particularly unique this week, send me the link to something you think is worthy of inclusion.

The content needs to be related to the myriad of topics that fall under the Library and Information Science umbrella. I encourage you to interpret that broadly. I know I do. And, of course, I'm looking for original thought and opinion, rather than regurgitation and reiteration.

I will post a more detailed overview with guidelines for submitting and hosting* in another post, but I wanted to get y'all thinking about possible submissions for this week. This will only work with the participation of all you wonderful folks in the LIS blogosphere. So write (or read) something great and join the Carnival!

*One of my main goals is to have a new host for the Carnival every week, but I'll take the first two weeks to get the ball rolling and iron out some of the initial wrinkles.