The Network Reshapes the Library: Lorcan Dempsey on Libraries, Services, and Networks

This collection of insights from library technology guru Lorcan Dempsey offers readers valuable reflections on emerging trends and key areas of concern as well as a visionary approach to libraries' future.

Over the last decade, Dempsey's writing has covered diverse and wide ranging topics including the evolution of libraries, from how library organization, services and technologies are co-evolving with the behaviours of their users to support their changing research and learning needs, to how the curatorial traditions of archives, libraries and museums have come together in the digital environment.

This selection of posts, originally from Dempsey's blog, has been expertly curated by Kenneth J Varnum to showcase Dempsey's dual ability to firstly explore an issue and then to reveal the higher-order trends. Using this method, Dempsey provides his incisive perspective on where libraries have been in the last decade as well as his prescient insights into future trends and directions.

The book is organised into 9 topical chapters:

Networked resources

Network organization

The research process and libraries' evolving role

Resource discovery

Library systems and tools such as search indices and OpenURL link resolvers

Data and metadata

Publishing and communication, including blogs, social media, and scholarly communication

Libraries, archives, museums, and galleries as 'memory institutions'.

Readership

: The book concludes with a selection of favourites hand-picked by Dempsey himself and will be essential reading for students, library strategists, administrators, technology staff and anyone with an interest in the future of libraries.

Lorcan Dempsey, Kenneth J. Varnum