About
Many of us in the library profession have been reading Lorcan Dempsey’s Weblog for years. I had the opportunity to work with Lorcan in selecting and organizing the most significant items and putting them together into book form.
The Network Reshapes the Library: Lorcan Dempsey on Libraries, Services, and Networks is available as an open-access PDF from OCLC, but still may be purchased in print from Amazon (paperback and Kindle versions) and the ALA Store.
Interview with Lorcan Dempsey
Lorcan and I discuss the blog’s origins, how we put it together, and what’s to come.
From the Publisher
Since he began posting in 2003, Dempsey has used his blog to explore nearly every important facet of library technology, from the emergence of Web 2.0 as a concept to open source ILS tools and the push to web-scale library management systems. More than just a commentary on the issue of the moment, the more than 1,800 posts have offered thousands of readers valuable perspective and insight as well as a visionary approach to libraries’ future. In a compendium that library planners, administrators, and technology staff will find endlessly stimulating, Varnum offers an expertly curated selection of entries from Dempsey’s blog.
The book concludes with a selection of favorites hand-picked by Dempsey himself. As one university librarian put it, Dempsey’s “dual ability to explore an issue and to reveal the higher-order trends is spot-on for understanding our volatile environment.” That unique and thoughtful analysis is on full display in this book.
