I’m generally up by 6.30am. Breakfast is some kind of healthy cereal and, more importantly, a very strong cup of coffee. Then I’m out the door. Currently, I’m cycling into college. Arriving on campus is a visual feast: the planting at different times of the year, the array of different architectural styles, the living facades, the sculptures, locking the bike by Pomodoro’s Sphere, stepping into one of the world’s great libraries – what an honour! And I have the pleasure of working with brilliant people who are as passionate as I am about finding ways to share and increase knowledge. There is no such thing as a typical day, or even week in this role. The only constant is multiplicity: I rarely spend a full day in my office, balancing meetings, representing the Library externally and abroad and seeing staff. The Library is the beating heart of the university and critical to decisions we take as an institution, be that education, research, cultural heritage, physical and virtual infrastructure. For visiting dignitaries to Ireland, the Old Library and Book of Kells are frequently on their wish list and the Provost and I accompany them. Joe Biden has visited twice – once as Vice-President together with a huge phalanx, and once as a private citizen, when he quoted Seamus Heaney’s Republic of Conscience . Then there was the President, who had better remain unnamed, who asked me which was Harry Potter’s desk! We recently received a generous donation from Lord Laidlaw to create a new Research and Innovation library at Trinity East, as an anchor to the new campus at Grand Canal Dock. This will be something radically different: our inaugural ‘digital first and foremost’ library where readers (from the college and outside) will access the multiplicity of digital material and collaborate in shared spaces. It will be open and experimental, without security gates, and will embody the radical sustainability vision for the new campus. We’re currently in the middle of the largest conservation and renovation project of the Old Library since it was built in 1732. The urgency around de-risking this national protected monument and its historic collections was reinforced by the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral. The searingly awful sight of the wooden spire ablaze on the Parisian skyline underscores the need to upgrade the protection of the magnificent, wood-lined, vaulted Long Room. This is a huge, complex project, with multiple strands. We’ve just completed the gargantuan task of removing 750,000
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