LISNews: Librarian News

Mosio’s Text a Librarian is partnering with ALA this summer in Chicago to offer Text an ALA Ambassador, which will provide mobile information services to all attendees and participants at the conference via text message. The 250 ALA Ambassador volunteers will use the Text a Librarian technology, which enables attendees to text message any question via their mobile phones regarding conference programming, schedules, locations, etc. and have Ambassadors staffing the information desks respond via a web-based interface. More information here: http://tinyurl.com/qjuf64

The TED [Technology, Entertainment, Design] conferences are known for "riveting talks by remarkable people"--Doris Kearns Goodwin, Elizabeth Gilbert, Michael Pollan, and Steven Pinker, to name a few--and all TED Talks are available for viewing at the TED site. But where to dive in?

Via @joycevalenza, here's a link to all TED Talks as of 03/31/09 on a spreadsheet that includes names of talkers, names of talks, short summaries of talks, and links to the videos. It enables one to quickly skim topics and choose a talk for viewing.

Lauren Pressley of Wake Forest University's Z. Smith Reynolds Library and her coworkers have come up with a great way to share TED Talks with staff: they have weekly, informal Wednesday Lunches with TED, watching a talk (each TED talk is 18 minutes max., by design) and then chatting about possible applications for the library.

If the hashtag in use remains the same during the conference, these two links can help you follow along via Twitter:

In context, relatively speaking, on Twitter Search: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23cil2009
RSS feed to pipe into your reader: http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=%23cil2009

The Greenwich Times profiles the two librarians killed in the tragic crash reported here earlier today. The two were headed home to CT from ALA when the taxi van they were riding in was slammed into by another driver.

The library's head of youth services, Kathy Krasniewicz, 54, of Palmer Hill Road, Riverside, and former youth services director Kate McClelland, 71, of Dorchester Lane, Riverside, were killed in the accident, cause by an alleged drunk driver.

"We received the tragic news of the passing of our colleagues in Denver today," said library Director Kevin McCarthy, who declined to comment further Wednesday evening. "It's too raw at the moment. The shock has not worn off yet."