Lorcan Dempsey
Columbus
Librarian, writer and adviser. Living with family in Ohio. From Ireland to England to the US.
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Articles by Lorcan Dempsey
The informational disciplines
This is an excerpt from a longer contribution I made to Responses to the LIS Forward Position Paper: Ensuring a Vibrant Future for LIS in iSchools. [pdf] It is a sketch only, and somewhat informal, but I thought I would put it here in case of interest. It occasionally references the position paper, and the longer piece of which it is a part. It is also influenced by the context in which it was prepared which was a discussion of the informational disciplines and the iSchool in R1 institutions.
Introduction and summary: Library Studies, the Informational Disciplines, and the iSchool: Some Remarks Prompted by LIS Forward
This is an excerpt from a longer contribution I made to Responses to the LIS Forward Position Paper: Ensuring a Vibrant Future for LIS in iSchools. [pdf] It is a sketch only, and somewhat informal, but I thought I would put it here in case of interest. I have not revised it. This is the introduction and summary, and it extensively references the full response and the Position Paper itself. I link to the position paper, my response, and sections excerpted here below.
On the dissemination of ideas and innovation
This is an excerpt from a longer contribution I made to Responses to the LIS Forward Position Paper: Ensuring a Vibrant Future for LIS in iSchools. [pdf] It is a sketch only, and somewhat informal, but I thought I would put it here in case of interest. It occasionally references the position paper. It is also influenced by the context in which it was prepared which was a discussion of the informational disciplines and the iSchool in R1 institutions.
Libraries and library studies
This is an excerpt from a longer contribution I made to Responses to the LIS Forward Position Paper: Ensuring a Vibrant Future for LIS in iSchools [pdf]. It is a sketch only, and somewhat informal, but I thought I would put it here in case of interest. It is also influenced by the context in which it was prepared which was a discussion of the informational disciplines and the iSchool in R1 institutions.
Clifford A Lynch, RIP
Cliff has left a major legacy and a large gap. Read the touching tributes from ARL and CNI. I first met Cliff in 1990. I was on a study trip to the US and Canada, commissioned by the British Library to prepare a report on emerging network trends in libraries, with a special emphasis on the US. It was an early activity associated with UKOLN at the University of Bath, which the BL partly funded (the UK Office for Library and Information Networking, which has since ceased to exist).
Information: a brief schematic history
This is an excerpt from a contribution I made to Responses to the LIS Forward Position Paper: Ensuring a Vibrant Future for LIS in iSchools. It is a sketch only, and somewhat informal, but I thought I would put it here in case of interest. In the unlikely event you would like to reference it, I would be grateful if you cite the full original: Dempsey, L. (2025). Library Studies, the Informational Disciplines, and the iSchool: Some Remarks Prompted by LIS Forward.
Document chat: an early AI use case
Introduction: boundaries between reading, interaction and workflow are blurring It is useful to think about AI as a new cultural technology, a phrase development psychologist Alison Gopnik has been using. Instead, these AI systems are what we might call cultural technologies, like writing, print, libraries, internet search engines or even language itself. They are new techniques for passing on information from one group of people to another.
Libraries, AI and the messy middle
I am trying something new. I have recently been presenting about AI and libararies. I have annotated and augmented the presentation so that it is a little more self-standing than my usual more elliptical powerpoints. By the messy middle, I mean that libraries are having to grapple with real questions about AI deployment, procurement and use. They may participate in discussions about bold futures or about grave risks.
Smile: let's see your teeth
Smile is a very engaging novel. It is the most popular of Raina Telgemeier's works, if measured by Amazon sales. I bought it last year, prompted by the enormously successful exhibition about her work at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at The Ohio State University. The graphic novel version came out just too late to be a big part of our own children's reading, so I was not familiar with it before.
So-called soft skills are hard
We can recognize the importance of 'soft skills' while acknowledging that 'soft' has multiple associations that may be misleadingly at variance with the importance of those skills. In this post, I look at some contexts which are making such skills both more visible and more important before making some general concluding observations. It is clear that such skills are core needs for the library which is increasingly networked, relational and community focused.
Predicting the Unpredictable
In January, Microsoft announced the first change in 30 years to its Windows keyboard, adding a new button for its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, Copilot. It’s not surprising, but it is symptomatic. AI is everywhere. Scholars Michael Barrett and Wanda Orlikowski note in a March 2021 paper that technologies deployed at scale have both constructive and problematic outcomes.
AI, OpenAI and the evolving AI environment
For a while the OpenAI 'ouster' was the top story on the New York Times home page, and they devoted considerable ongoing coverage to it. Given the impact of ChatGPT and the commercial, social and policy pervasiveness of AI it was big news. And even if things have settled down again, it has changed perceptions of the organization and kept concerns about AI in the news. Here are some thoughts about what has happened, with some notes about library connections and impacts.
Using a custom GPT to ask about collections and collaboration.
Customizing Chatbots and agents - the GPT OpenAI has made some big announcements about enhancements recently, including the ability to create custom chatbots, called GPTs (which seems like an unnecessarily confusing name?). These can be created through a natural language 'builder' interface, can be asked to carry out particular 'actions', and can work with uploaded specialised data.
The rhinoceros in the room ... redux
We are becoming familiar with a new vocabulary and new practices: prompt engineering, image generation, hallucination, and so on. In my last post I noted how AI can be weird (to use Ethan Mollick's term for it) because it may not always behave as expected, and can surprise. The structure and content of instructions can influence responses in different ways.
Generative AI and libraries: 7 contexts
This is the third of four posts on Generative AI: Generative AI and large language models: background and contexts Generative AI, scholarly and cultural language models, and the return of content Generative AI and libraries: 7 contexts Generative AI and library services: some directions It is now a year since the momentous appearance of ChatGPT. So much has happened in that time.
Celebrating Ohio
The book pictured below is a wonderfully mordant, affectionate and occasionally hilarious overview of the "longest vowel-covered stretch of real estate in the world." Some relevant quotes: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa cover 900 horizontal miles, house more than 32 million people, but use only nine letters: A, D, H, I, L, N, O, S, and W. "What geography can give all Midwesterners," writes Indianapolis-born Kurt Vonnegut, "along with fresh water and topsoil ...
The narrative website: from signposting to storytelling
The library website At the AMICAL2023conference recently I spoke about libraries and the relational turn. In the collections-based library, services, organization and spaces are configured by management of the collection. In the relational library, services, organization and spaces are configured by changing patterns of research, learning and public engagement [pres, video].
Generative AI, scholarly and cultural language models, and the return of content
Systems AI momentum continues to grow, and we are seeing more applications in the scholarly and cultural spaces. Several organizations have been creating specialist large language models based on reservoirs of curated scientific and cultural data. 22 min read Introduction I provided a general overview of large language models and generative AI in a recent post. As AI momentum continues to grow, there are now more announcements in areas which are closer to our domain.
Font choices, value and ecosystem. National Library examples
Institutions Typefaces and fonts are functional. However they also contribute in other ways - to brand, to atmosphere, to feeling. This is a brief introduction to aspects of the typeface ecosystem. I combine this with some commentary about how typefaces are used in national libraries to provide context. 43 min read A note on vocabulary: A type foundry is an organization that designs or distributes fonts. They may employ type designers or contract with them to distribute their fonts.
Generative AI and large language models: background and contexts
Systems The promise and challenge of Generative AI is now central. This is a summary overview of some of the major directions and issues. It may soon be superseded, but I intend it as background to later posts about library implications and developments. 49 min read The age of generative AI and the large language model It looks like generative AI will be broadly deployed across industries, in education, science, retail and recreation. Everywhere.
Hallucination and collections
Collections Hallucination and collections I asked HuggingChat about library collections. It is definitely hallucinating in its responses. Lorcan May 13, 2023 1 min read I realise that my thinking on library collections may not be as well formed as it could be, but really ...? When I experiment with Chatbot interfaces I tend to have some standard queries. I ask whether the concept of the Irish diaspora is a helpful one in the context of either British or US politics.
The technology career ladder
Institutions Library leaders should be drawn from across the organization. Any idea that technology leaders are overly specialised or too distant from general library work is outmoded and counter-productive. 7 min read This post is jointly written with Karen Estlund, Dean of Libraries at Colorado State University.
Incorrigibly plural: notes about fonts
Meta 2 min read I have become increasingly interested in fonts over the last couple of years, exploring something of the history as well as the enormous volume and variety of current activity. I will post an occasional note about them here, acknowledging my amateur status. The fonts on this entry are from two sources, each with an intriguing and significant story that speaks to diversity and its lack.
Reflections .. on my last day at OCLC
Today was my last day at OCLC. After 21 years. Much has changed over that time. And I have been very lucky to work for an organization which has helped influence that change. I have also been extraordinarily lucky to work with great colleagues and to have had the opportunity to interact with so many librarians around the world in different roles and contexts.
From Lorcan Dempsey's Weblog to LorcanDempsey.net
LorcanDempsey.net This is my web home going forward. Enjoy .. and get in touch. Here is the home page. LorcanDempsey.net A place on the web to gather the writings and thoughts of Lorcan Dempsey, librarian. Lorcan Dempsey's Weblog - orweblog I blogged for many years at Lorcan Dempsey's Weblog. I have migrated the posts to this site, and given them a designated path: Lorcandempsey.net/weblog/{entry}.
Operationalizing a collective collection …
We are pleased to publish a discussion paper this week in collaboration with BTAA. It looks at choices that need to be made when operationalizing the BTAA collective collection. In this introductory post, I briefly introduce some thoughts about operationalizing collective collections, drawing on the report. Collective collections are collections addressed at a level above the individual institution, in a network context.
The book of the blog
The book I blogged for many years at Lorcan Dempsey's Weblog. We have ported the entries to this venue, and previous URLs should redirect. I was very pleased that ALA Publishing agreed to publish a book of the blog and also that they agreed we could make a version open for all. It is released by Facet in the UK. The blog was very influential for several years, popularizing various themes and phrases. I am grateful to Ken Varnum for working with me on this – he turned a mountain of words into a book.
Presentation: College, consortium, collaboration, collective collection
Presentation Although library collaboration is common and many libraries collaborate through many organizations, it is a relatively unexamined aspect of library work. Many descriptions exist, but little from the point of view of organization and motivation. In this presentation, Constance Malpas and I presented a framework for thinking about library collaboration and drew out some of the challenges successful collaborations face.
Book Review: The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland
I imported this article 'as is', preserving links back into Ariadne. Here is the citation as it appears in Ariadne.
Transitioning from Lorcan Dempsey's Weblog to LorcanDempsey.net
A brief tour There are pages about writing, career and life, the usual stuff. I especially enjoyed providing an overview of my writing, thinking about continuity and evolution. As I note, I hope to write more about social and institutional aspects of libraries in the future. Writing I have written widely over the years.
RLUK Digital Shift Forum. Pandemic effects and collection directions
I was pleased to inaugurate the RLUK Digital Shift Forum, with a presentation on Pandemic effects and collection directions. I was especially pleased to be kindly introduced by my longstanding colleague Robin Green, University Librarian at Warwick University, and current chair of RLUK. Here is how the session was described: I was pleased to participate in this series of discussions to help further conversation around RLUK’s manifesto for the digital shift in research libraries. Here are the slides.
The (Digital) Library Environment: 10 years after
I imported this article 'as is', preserving links back into Ariadne. Here is the citation as it appears in Ariadne.
Working with the Ghost blogging platform: a review
The choice In looking at building a personal site, there seemed to be some very clear tradeoffs, between prefabrication and control, between time spent writing and time spent building. Especially as a secondary goal for me in starting a new web presence is to learn a little more about front-end web technologies, while starting from a low knowledge base (CSS, Handlebars, JavaScript). Some options: WordPress is the most obvious choice.
Advice to an LIS graduate student: reflecting life and career
I got an email in October last year from Achilles Escudero-Kontostathis, a graduate student in LIS at Catholic University, Washington DC. He asked if I could talk about what I valued or found essential for a library student to know. What is some of the best advice I could give to students like him? Achilles noted he was interested in my life and career.
Workflow is the new content 1: looking at research support and engagement
Writing here in 2017, I noted that my occasional blog entries tended to balloon into article proportions. One was on research workflows, very much from a library point of view. I reviewed the draft and decided to publish it here, splitting it into four linked entries, to appear over the next while. I have updated it somewhat and added links to the extensive work of my OCLC Research colleagues in a final section. However, it also retains some references from back then.
Presentations: Collection directions, pandemic effects, Belgium, Italy
Collections Rethinking professional assembly A clear pandemic effect will be a rethinking of professional assembly. When does it make sense to think about a face to face event? When and how do you do hybrid events? And how many events will go to online only? Of course, it is not just a choice of mode. Our sense of how to present online is different than it might be in person.
Presentation: Two Metadata Directions
Systems Conference I was pleased to deliver a presentation at the Eurasian Academic Libraries Conference - 2021, organized by The Nazarbayev University Library and the Association of University Libraries in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Thanks to April Manabat of Nazarbayev University for the invitation and support. I was asked to talk about metadata and to mention OCLC developments. The conference topic was: Contemporary Trends in Information Organization in the Academic Library Environment.
Two metadata directions
Systems This short piece is based on a presentation I delivered by video to the Eurasian Academic Libraries Conference - 2021, organized by The Nazarbayev University Library and the Association of University Libraries in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Thanks to April Manabat of Nazarbayev University for the invitation and for encouragement as I prepared the presentation and blog entry. I was asked to talk about metadata and to mention OCLC developments.
Collection directions accelerated? Pandemic effects.
In different ways, each moves beyond the carefully constructed and locally acquired collection. I believe that we will see accelerated broad adoption of these approaches post-pandemic, as collections activity further peels away from the locally acquired collection. In this piece, I speculate about collections in relation to these three directions, and also briefly introduce three additional cross-cutting collection contexts (optimizing, pluralizing and computational reading at scale).
Calgary Central Library: combining intimacy and civic statement
InstitutionsUX A significant space It was moving, uplifting, and .... reassuring. It combined intimacy of experience with monumental civic statement, and just seemed so right in so many ways. Organized as a set of curved spaces around a central eye shaped atrium, it conveyed both spaciousness and focus, it fitted a lot in without being crowded.
Recent presentations
Slides are often a poor record of a presentation, especially when used as prompts rather than as full records. But they can be useful. Of course, I will sometimes give various evolving versions of a similar presentation and there is no point in posting them all. I debated whether to use Slideshare or figshare. Slideshare is interesting and seemed to peak a while ago. I don't know why it did not last within the Linkedin family and we will see what Scribd do with it now that they own it.
Writing
Overview While these particular emphases have been enduring interests, each has emerged successively. I moved to the UK to work for what was then The Centre for Bibliographic Management, at the University of Bath, which later morphed into the UK Office for Library and Information Networking (UKOLN). So my early focus was very much on the emerging apparatus of metadata, networking and related approaches.
Who is the catalog for?
The current discussion about the catalog and its centrality or otherwise prompt me to repeat a passage from my favorite example of the library in literature. This is from Robert Musil’s The man without qualities. Chapter 100 of this novel is General Stumm invades the State Library and learns about the world of books, the librarians guarding it, and intellectual order.
Reflections on Collective Collections
Home > Vol 81, No 6 (2020) > Lavoie Reflections on Collective Collections Brian Lavoie, Lorcan Dempsey, Constance Malpas Abstract Collective collections are multiple local collections described and/or managed as a single collection. Constructing, understanding, and operationalizing collective collections is an increasingly important aspect of collection management for many libraries.
Library Discovery Directions
In this foreword to the edited collection Resource Discovery for the Twenty-First Century Library (2020), Lorcan Dempsey discusses the diversified scope of library discovery. In only a few years, the emphasis of library discovery has shifted, expanding from consideration of a particular library application (most recently the “discovery layer”) to a broader consideration of user behaviors and service development in a complex network ecosystem of offerings.
Collection directions accelerated? Pandemic effects.
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. In different ways, each moves beyond the carefully constructed and locally acquired collection.
Reflections on Collective Collections
Collective collections are the combined holdings of a group of libraries, analyzed and possibly managed as a unified resource. Constructing, understanding, and operationalizing collective collections is an increasingly important aspect of collection management for many libraries. This article presents some general insights about collective collections, drawn from a series of studies conducted by OCLC.
Collective collections: Prospective and retrospective collection coordination
Collective collections are collections addressed at a level above the individual institution. I introduced our recent report on operationalizing collective collections in my last post, where I noted that there is a trend towards more managed collective collections, particularly within consortial settings. Collection coordination is central to building collective collections.
Collective collections: Prospective and retrospective collection coordination
CollectionsCollaboration Coordinating collective collections Collective collections are collections addressed at a level above the individual institution. I introduced our recent report on operationalizing collective collections in my last post, where I noted that there is a trend towards more managed collective collections, particularly within consortial settings. Collection coordination is central to building collective collections.
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