We like loose cannons at Darien Library, and that goes double for loose cannon librarians:

Announced this evening:

Kate Sheehan will join Darien Library as Head of Knowledge and Innovation Services on March 1, 2008. She is currently Coordinator of Library Automation at Danbury Library, blogs at loosecannonlibrarian.net, is an active speaker on Library 2.0 and social software initiatives, and has gained national recognition for implementing the first LibraryThing plug-in to a library catalog.

(full announcement)

We are lucky to have her join our staff and I’m looking forward to working with her.  Congrats Kate, and welcome!

If anyone was going to pull a stunt like this, it would be Casey.  Last time I had Wilderness First Responder training (about 10 years ago), not many people had even conceived of a device like the iPhone.  I can easily see a GPS & data-enabled mobile device becoming a replacement for or an enhancement to the old-school EPIRB.

From Casey:

I had my iPhone, and it had a signal. I looked up “fix dislocated shoulder” and quickly read the WikiHow article that appeared on top. I passed it on to Jon for a second opinion, and he read it out loud for us all. Will choked on the line “this will not be a comfortable experience, but do not give in to the pain.” And I choked on it a few moments later when I performed the procedure as outlined and felt and heard the snapping like a popsicle stick bent too far. Thankfully, the line “when the shoulder pops back into its joint, relief will come immediately” was true.

That’s badass librarianship.