Note: Talking with one of my wise friends, I was cautioned that maybe some of the complaints from various Carnival hosts about the lack of participation were not “helping the cause,” if you will. Seeing the wisdom in that stance, I took a closer look at what I had already written here. I have decided that it isn’t all that much of a rant and focuses more on what I hope(d) the Carnival can become. If it, in fact, sounds more like a rant to you, then I apologize. My aim is not to shame or belittle. Maybe we as a community are incapable of keeping this going. I, for one, have no choice but to believe differently.
This was my 5th time hosting the Carnival of the Infosciences; four at my previous digs, …the thoughts are broken…, and now one here. I’ve heard people say one should leave a venture when one is on top[, along with other conflicting advice]. Having hosted 5 times puts me on the top (of something, anyway).
Thus, I feel it is time for me to bow out gracefully. At least for a while. I had high hopes for the Carnival from the beginning. At times they were even fulfilled. Greg and Chadwick cannot do this on their own, though. It takes people to write something and then submit it, or for someone to recommend someone else’s content.
Hosting really isn’t very hard at all, except in one case. That case would be when there are no or very few submissions. Submissions are what drive the Carnival; nothing else can. I may have a lot of “library-related” blogs in my feed reader, but there are far more that I do not read.
One of my hopes for the Carnival has always been that it might bring me (and others) good items by librarians of stripes which I (or others) would normally not see. It does this sometimes for me, but not as often as it seems it should. It seems even the fair amount of the biblioblogosphere that I am aware of is highly fragmented from other portions.
Since I am, in a sense, bailing I may have no right (moral or otherwise) to ask others to step up, but I’m going to anyway. Please, folks! Save the Carnival. Only you as individuals can do this. For yourselves and/or for others. As for past hosts (and Greg and Chadwick, of course), I want to give a hearty thank you for your efforts! Feel free to host again if you like and have the time, but maybe you can join me into poking and prodding other folks into hosting for the first time.
All one has to do, hosting or otherwise, is keep this URL for the Carnival wiki handy, and while one is reading whatever blogs you read is to keep a 1/10th (or less) of your perceptual powers [You are a library worker, right? You have perceptual powers!] focused on noticing good writing. Once you decide it is good writing, or good commentary on an important issue, or whatever criteria of good you prefer, check that previous URL and send your recommendation to the next host.
Or, if you said something that you care about for whatever reason, submit it.
We all constitute a smart, intelligent, curious, bunch of library folks with blogs. There are too many of us, and too many areas for any one of us to keep us with all. If a fair number of us, from all walks (and paces) of librarianship, could keep small parts of our perception attuned to the Carnival then we could achieve something approaching a collective collective development for a kind of selective dissemination of information (with the selection being all of the biblioblogosphere). Every two weeks. Now, to me anyway … that is freaking amazing!
Maybe you like that stupid electronic newsletter thing we get from ALA [well, some of us "we"], but I’m pretty certain we can—and do—do better. We could do even better.
Fine. I am an idealist still. Again. Whatever. But no organization could ever do what we as LIS bloggers could do with this Carnival, even if only a handful or two of folks from all the various areas/slices/angles/axes/practices/… hosted and made submissions each week (handfuls from each ‘area,’ that is). But that is the answer, the only answer. Submissions.
If the Carnival is to survive in any form, covering any slice of the biblioblogosphere, then the only answer is submissions. I will certainly keep on the lookout for them.
Submissions for the next Carnival can be made at the contact form at LIS :: Michael Habib.
I don’t think it is a rant at all, but it is something to think about if the Carnival is to continue. For me, initially, the Carnival was that place for me to go find new posts that I had not seen previously, or posts from people I usually do not read or just don’t have on my reader. As you point out, one can’t read anything. However, in some instances, by the time the Carnival showed up on my feed reader, it was rehashing stuff I had already read in my aggregator. Some of it may be due to the fact that much of the biblioblogosphere seems to pick up on a lot of the same stuff. If you read two or three of the big names, you pretty much got the sense of whatever big deal librarians are having on a given day.
For me, a big challenge is finding those librarians, who like you, have something different, thoughtful, and at times out of the way, to say. At times, I find that Blake’s This Week in Blogland does some of that for me. I do say some. Some weeks he is great, other weeks I am like “I already saw all this.” I think much of it can be hit and miss.
As for me submitting, I don’t write stuff that is really that earth-shattering for one. In fact, I actively try to stay away from anything that seems to be part of the echo chambers. The whole thing with that library weeding the classics (which turns out they are just weeding some books, not taking out all the classics. Typical case of not reading critically) or closing that other library because teens can’t behave are things I have thoughts about, but they have been covered ad nauseam. Don’t even get me started on anything 2.0. It’s not that I don’t think about them; it’s more like why bother with adding to the echo?
In the end, I wish I had a nice pat answer. I know I hate that spam stuff ALA calls an electronic newsletter. I have to figure out if there is a way to unsubscribe from it. We can certainly do so much better. One thing I like about the Carnival is that it does pick up the smaller voices. I heard at one point someone question why none of the A-listers ever submitted. I could care less. I get them on my feed reader. I want the precisely the little voices that submit and the ones that the hosts do. Actually, I think that is another way where the hosts bring value, in their choices.
BTW, I scanned your hosting for the week, but I can tell you have some different things already.
As always, best, and keep on blogging.
Hi Angel, and thank for the “not a rant” vote. Hard to tell sometimes as people (in person) often think I’m ranting when I certainly am not. Has a lot to do with being loud, which came about from being the smallest one around for so long, and …. When I get excited about something I tend to get loud and a bit more direct and some people take that for ranting. Anyway, back to the Carnival.
It *is* hard to find stuff that isn’t already echoed everywhere, particularly with the “new” 2 week schedule. I agree that the every week schedule was clearly unsustainable and, thus, support the new one, but it adds its own dimensions to the situation.
As for the big names, I have removed most of them from my aggregator. Jessamyn is still there, for several reasons. Mainly because she does have something to say that is not what I’d get most other places, and the world she works in is much different than mine and I think it’s good to be reminded of that; often. As for other “big names,” I guess folks probably disagree over who is one and who isn’t.
Meredith is still in my aggregator, particularly because she also has generally well thought out (and positive) things to say. She also makes a good springboard; not to disagree with, but to add more nuance. I really hope she doesn’t take me wrong (see the start of this comment); things are so easily miscommunicated in the interwebs.
Walt, who I do not really consider a big name (for some reason which I cannot fathom) but whom I respect far more than any of the “big names” is there. Pretty much anybody else with over 600-700 Bloglines subscriptions were ejected several weeks ago. Can’t say as I miss ‘em, either.
And, Angel, no one out here is writing earth-shattering stuff. Someone’s post now and again may be that to one or two people, but I can’t think of anything I would call earth-shattering. I have certainly seen tons of extremely interesting things, but I haven’t spotted any comets on a destructive path yet.
You, my friend, write very well. I am (and have been for a while) seeing lots of links and references to your posts. I’m not trying to scare you, just trying to let you know it’s not just me saying that. One reason I feel you would make a good contributor is for the very reason that you do write about things other than what the “echo chamber” is doing. That is very important; whatever your reasons for doing so.
I think I once (early on) asked why none of the A-listers were contributing. This was before Walt’s blog “rankings,” and the discussions of A-listers, and the one on shameless self-promotion and other such topics. Of course, as soon as some began to participate I got a tad miffed. [Boy, I should *not* even be writing this in public!] There was one week between very light Carnivals when an A-lister hosted and they had tons of submissions. Now maybe that is how the host defined them and they were really host selections. I guess I could write them and ask for clarification, but it really doesn’t matter and, worse, if my suspicions were borne out then I *would* be mad. Who needs it?
I really do love and support the Carnival! If this thing fails it will leave a bad taste in my mouth about my chosen profession, and of my efforts to participate in it (Journal Club, Carnival, …). I agree Journal Club was a time issue for all of us, even me. But it sure seems like it should work. Same for the Carnival. If any group of people could pull such a thing off, why can’t librarians?
And before anyone tries to call me out for dismissing the entire profession were the Carnival to fail, that is not what I said. I only said it would leave a bad taste in my mouth. It isn’t like there aren’t any lingering around in there already.
Now, it’s back to my thesaurus paper.
Hmmmm? I wonder how many ways I can say I don’t want to do it!!!
Hmm, that is an interesting thought on the big names, whoever they may be (as if we did not know. Ok, that is the cynic in me), but I am referring to the idea of removing some of them. I may have to give that some thought, if for no other reason than to lighten the load on the reader. The names you mention, Jessamyn, Meredith, and Walt are on mine as well. I had the good fortune of meeting Jessamyn at TLA briefly. She is as good in person as she is in writing. As for Walt, I hope he keeps doing that blog ranking and discussion he does. It’s like some “national service” thing, you know? Someone should give him a grant for that or something.
In the end, indeed librarians can pull off anything. We have the know how, and we certainly have the spunk to do it as well. Now go back and write that paper. I know, you don’t wanna, but has to be done.
As always, best and keep on blogging.
I honestly don’t know how the editors at the time pick their own picks, but I am sure it is not easy. I like that they do that because often they pick some person whose blog I find interesting enough to add, so makes a nice resource to find new reading material.
While I scanned by earlier today I pondered whether tools like del.icio.us or technorati might ease the submission process – I use del.icio.us and could easily add a tag for eg CarnivalInfoscience when I tag a post that has caught my own interest. Perhaps this might be the same for others?
I am very grateful to the Carnival for introducing me to some very interesting bloggers and issues and ideas.
However I have to admit to not having read the Carnival for a few months – my Bloglines subscriptions have been enough to keep up with that I haven’t chased up other sources … then this evening Bloglines told me that Peta at Innovate has created a Bloglines search for the Carnival! Beauty – now keeping up will be simple.
Goodluck.
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Hi Mark,
I’ve pared down my blog reading considerably and so missed this post, but wanted to thank you for taking the time to “not rant” about the Carnival. I really appreciate that you see the value in it.
Also wanted to mention that I really enjoy seeing the older pics come through your Flickr feed. Makes me want to scan some of my college pics.