Kieran Hegarty is a librarian and sociologist. He is a currently a PhD candidate at RMIT University in Melbourne and works on the Australian Research Council project 'Representing Multicultural Australia in National and State Libraries', run in partnership with the National Library of Australia (NLA) and three state libraries (New South Wales, South Australia, and Victoria).
Kieran’s PhD research considers how the web has changed how national and state libraries build collections and how they are put to use. He is particularly interested in how automation and third-party applications used in web archiving and social media collecting are changing the nature of curation and documentary heritage. Through extended periods of fieldwork at the NLA and the State Library of New South Wales, Kieran is exploring the day-to-day production of two collections: the national Australian Web Archive and the New South Wales Social Media Archive.
Kieran is passionate about taking experimental, creative, and collaborative approaches to research. Following his PhD, he hopes to continue his work in libraries, creative arts institutions, and sites of research, supporting ways to understand and challenge the power structures that shape how knowledge is created, disseminated, and authorised.
You can find out more about Kieran’s research at his website (assemblingtheweb.com) or on Twitter @assemblingweb.
