La Carvinal
March 5th, 2006Step right up for the latest Carnival of the Infosciences. First, we’ll get to the submissions (there were a bunch this week - thanks guys!), then I have a few for your perusal.
+ David King (A carnival submisison virgin) sends word that his new blog is live and that he has a new feed. David’s blog is a must read.
+ Richard Akerman (another carnival submission newbie) sends in a post about the role of technology in the “new library”, which is well worth a read. Richard’s blog is a must in my aggregator as well.
+ Luke Rosenberger submits a post he wrote about the Elder Wisdom Circle and then writes something that made me smile, because his thought meshes with mine:
“[w]e no longer just look at the shelves as the sources and the patrons as the consumers, but rather start looking at our patrons as sources — of wisdom, of cool and innovative ideas, of life experience, of tools and code, of historical knowledge, of organizational constructs (like folksonomy tags)”
Luke is dead on here and it’s all about classic social network analysis. This will be a major theme in Libraries Building Communties.
+ T. Scott submits a fine piece on Wikipedia, Authority, and Truth. It was a very interesting read (and I’ve since subscribed to “T’s” blog), one which I highly recommend. Here’s a quote:
“In the long run, I completely agree that wiki technology offers the promise of preparing better reference works, more quickly updated, with more of an opportunity for more voices to be heard. But we need to give more thought to what it means to say that something is true and reliable. The history of lynching in America, to give just one particularly horrifying example, should give us pause whenever we think to rely on the wisdom of crowds.”
+ T. Scott also submitted part two on the same theme…
+ Amanda Robertson sends in a blog post by Patrick Cormier, who blogs about Information Management and lots of other related ideas (I’ve since subscubed to his blog as well - I love the Carvinal). Amanda enjoyed Patrick’s post on Social Tagging For the Enterprise.
+ Meredith Farkas sends along a bunch of links (I’ve used her descriptions of each of the posts below) about the recent discussions about ALA and the divisions.
“LITA’s 40. Will I make it to 45?” - by Walt Crawford - Walt discusses his long history with LITA and the things that now bother him and make him wonder whether he will continue his affiliation with the division.
“What Could ALA Do?” - by Meredith Farkas
A list of things that ALA could do that might keep young, tech-savvy members from leaving ALA and might get the ones who’ve already left back. Great dialogue in the comments.
“Getting Us Back” by Dorothea Salo - This post echoes many of the same themes and urges ALA to stop thinking about how to get money from as and more about how to provide good services to us as cheaply as possible. Dorothea also calls for a financial audit of ALA.
“ALA - value vs. return” by Jessamyn West - Jessamyn discusses the issues she perceives as not being properly addressed by ALA, including the job shortage for librarians and the terrible Web site that no one seems to be trying to improve.
“Martyrdom and ALA” by Meredith Farkas - A discussion of the “cult of martyrdom” that exists in librarianship — as well as many helping professions — and the importance of finding a balance between serving the profession and sacrificing one’s well-being.
“On the Eve of ALA Elections” - by Heidi Dolamore - Heidi discusses her candidacy (as well as the candidacy of Samantha Schmehl Hines) and states that she will be an ALA Councilor who will be responsive to the needs of the next-gen librarians and will try her best to change the things new librarians are looking to see changed. She also gives a list of four things she most wants to accomplish while on Council and comments on the list that Meredith had written in the “What Could ALA Do” post.
+ Charlton Braganza muses about alumni associations and social networks:
“Alumni can be a friendly face in a new city, a future employer or even a mentor. If you are planning a career switch, it might not be a bad idea to hit up the ol’ association and talk to someone who is in the field you want to be in. Also, some high schools might have even have their own alumni association.”
+ Joy Weese Moll sends in her post about librarians and their use of online social media, and links to an article about her!
+ Kelly Staley posts about figuring out how to create a Firefox search plug-in for Horizon Information Portal.
Here are a few that I’ve collected over the past week:
+ Steve Lawson hits 100 posts, 100 comments, and 100 Feedburner subscribers and talks about his blogging life.
+ Karen Schneider muses about the future of HPOW (Her Place of Work) in a few posts.
+ Librarian Avengers has posted a comparison of ALA to SXSW.
That’s all folks. Next week, tune into Frequently Asked Question. Also, if you haven’t hosted a Carvinal yet, please think about doing so. I find it a wonderful way to start the week as well as looking at posts that I hadn’t seen before. Greg, sign me up for another week…