I notice that the British Library has redesigned its website. It now highlights a search for BL resources: allowing a single search across the website, catalogues, journal articles for delivery, and digitized collections. This is an interesting high profile example of the desire to offer readers more unified access across the range of collections available. Which moves beyond the silo based approaches that owe as much to historic practice as user interest (look here for the catalog, over there for digital collections, and over here for journal articles).

Libraries and library studies
I wrote this piece on libraries and possible educational responses as part of a longer contribution on the informational disciplines and the iSchool. A principal goal was to suggest that libraries present interesting and challenging research and educational questions, which cross disciplines.
Lorcan Dempsey
14 min read

Information: a brief schematic history
In a piece on the informational disciplines and the iSchool, I sketched this very schematic and informal overview of information, broadly construed. My focus is pragmatic, related to library interests. I consider several current issues, including the 'apotheosis of the document' in an AI context.
Lorcan Dempsey
20 min read

So-called soft skills are hard
So-called soft skills are important across a range of library activities. Existing trends will further amplify this importance. Describing these skills as soft may be misleading, or even damaging. They should be recognized as learnable and teachable, and should be explicitly supported and rewarded.
Lorcan Dempsey
12 min read