The Medlib’s Round – FAQs

In a previous post I announced a new Blog Carnival, specifically for Medical Librarian-related matter. I also posted an announcement to Twitter and here are some of the responses:

Now there seemed to be a consensus that a further explanation would not be superfluous. So I will try to explain a little more and be more specific. Please let me know if you have further questions.

What is a blog carnival?

Blog Carnivals are a regular compilation of a “selection of blogposts in a certain area”, hosted by a different blogger each time.

And what is the Medlib’s Round?

The Medlib’s Round is a blog carnival about medical librarian stuff. Mosts posts will be written by librarians, but non-librarians are also invited to contribute. As long as it is about librarian-related matter and relevant. It would for instance be great to have a post of GP’s telling about their way of searching. The posts should be written in English (at least partially).

What is the intended Audience?

These are primarily librarians in the medical field, but other librarians, as well as doctors, medical students and health 2.0 people may find it also very useful, especially because the posts are bundled.

Why a Medlib’s Round?

On the one hand it is difficult to keep up with all the librarian blogs, on the other hand it is difficult for new librarian bloggers to be ‘heard’. And usually this is a major purpose of blogging. By compiling the best stories on a subject one can get a quick overview and pick up the information that seems interesting. You may also find new and/or less well known blogs, that may be interesting to follow. For participating bloggers it may create more visitors, more traffic and more discussion. There are many Carnivals, but none in this field.

How frequent is the Medlib’s Round?

The current frequency is once a month. If it successful, it may become a bimonthly carnival. The publications are on Tuesday, the submissions are due at Saturdays 00.00 (Dutch Time or 18.00 EST)

Who creates a blog carnival?

• Laika’s Medliblog is the organizer. The Organizer starts the carnival, decides what it will be about, what the submission criteria are, and how often it will appear. The organizer also coordinates who will host each edition of the carnival and keeps an archive.
• The Host volunteers to host a carnival edition on their blog. They work with the organizer to pick a date that suits them. Ideally the hosts are scheduled for months in advance.
  It goes for instance like this: Laika’s medliblog hosts the first round. @aldricham offered to host on the (multi-authored) blog Dragonfly. I asked her if March would be o.k. and she agreed. Februari and March are now scheduled. Hopefully other volunteers will follow soon for April, May and June.
  In the period leading up their scheduled date, hosts usually post a “call for submissions” to draw attention to the upcoming carnival and to provide further details, for instance whether there is a theme. Because we are only just starting, my advise is not to use a strict theme or use no theme at all. But it is up to the hosts to decide.
  Hosts automatically receive submissions from bloggers. They select the posts (removing spam and sometimes posts that don’t fit in) and organize them into a single article chalk-full of links, often with their own comments. The blogcarnival already has a preformatted posts, that makes it easy to compose the carnival. The article is published on the scheduled date and people can leave comments on the blog or comment on their own blog linking back to the posts.
• Bloggers who have written a recent article on the carnival’s topic on their own blog can submit the link for inclusion in the next edition of the carnival. All the blogger needs to do (except for writing the post and keeping the deadline in mind) is to go to the Blog Carnival submission form, login, submit links to selected posts and give an optional description.The Blog Carnival submission form shows (a) when the next carnival is scheduled (this is NOT the deadline which is 3 days earlier), (b) who is hosting it, (3) any details about the submission and (4) the email-address of the host.
  Blog Carnival takes care of getting it to the right person (either the host of that week or the organizer).

To submit you first have to sign in or register to the Blog Carnival

Submission via the form is really easy. Scroll down to find the form.

I hope you’re all enthusiastic about it and will submit a post (or really a link to a post on your blog) to the carnival in the next 3 weeks. Or perhaps you would like to host one edition.It is not difficult and you have time to see how the others do it.