Hi ... I am a librarian, writer, and adviser. I enjoy working with groups of libraries to develop shared services, products and directions. I help guide national and international cooperative and R&D programs. I have been very lucky to work for library, educational, and non-profit organizations in Ireland, the UK, the EU and the US.
Explore my reflections about the evolution of libraries in their social and cultural contexts here.
Please get in touch if we can work together. And sign up to follow along!
What do I value about libraries? asked a student. What is essential for a library student to know? Here are several ways in which life experiences have influenced my views.
The phrase 'workflow is the new content' captures an important insight. In the digital environment we often create, use and share content through workflow applications.
Over the past few years I have been talking about three systemic ways in which collections, broadly understood, are evolving in a network environment. They are: the collective collection, the facilitated collection, and the inside-out collection.
Libraries and related organizations group together in a variety of ways to get their work done. They consort where there are scale advantages: to lobby, for example, to negotiate and license, to reduce costs, or to build shared infrastructure.
Today is my last day at OCLC. After 21 years. I have been very lucky to have worked with some great people, to have influenced important work, and to have worked with librarians around the world. Here are some brief reflections as I prepare for the next chapter.
I presented updated versions of a presentation on libraries and pandemic effects and some implications for library collections recently. Each was delivered remotely, one to an event in Ostende, Belgium, and one to Milan, Italy, as unfortunately we have not yet returned to professional travel.
The presentation Two Metadata Directions looked at metadata trends, including entification and pluralization. Here are the slides, video and a link to a fuller discussion.
Metadata practice continues to evolve as research and cultural practices diversify. After a brief environmental view, I discuss two important metadata trends here: entification and pluralization.
This site is built with Ghost and the Krabi template. I use it for blogging and as a professional home on the web. Why Ghost? Here are some initial thoughts. Ask me again in a year's time .
This is a new web presence for Lorcan Dempsey! My goal is to provide a contact point and to bring together various elements of my work, writing and career. In part I am influenced by the decentralizing impulse to control your own archive.