About Our Keynote Speaker: Kathy Dempsey

Kathy Dempsey wrote the popular how-to book The Accidental Library Marketer and founded her own marketing consultancy, Libraries Are Essential. Her work is dedicated to helping librarians and information professionals promote their value and expertise in order to gain respect and funding.

Kathy has been the Editor of Marketing Library Services newsletter for 29 years, and was formerly Editor-in-Chief of Computers in Libraries magazine. She was Founding Chair of the Library Marketing and Communications Conference, running the show from 2015 through 2017. She's a longtime member of the New Jersey Library Association, and recently finished serving a term on the Executive Board of LibraryLinkNJ, a statewide co-op. Dempsey earned the title Certified Digital Marketing Professional in 2021.

This writer, editor, and marketing maven has been giving presentations for 28 years, always sprinkling them with humor to make marketing concepts more interesting and accessible. She continues to fight the stereotypes that librarians are boring and that "marketing" is a dirty word.