Mr. Paul Shovlin:

I thank the Deputy for her ongoing interest in the National Library. I see good business practice as the enabler for the cultural aspect. Without that, we struggle. We have got to have good business practice to enable the culture to be accessed.

The condition of storage is poor. Huge investment is needed there. As the board of the National Library, we need not just to repeat the mantra, "we are short of funding", but to create an atmosphere of saying: "This is where we need to be - how are we going to get there?" It is only through Government and other funding - I talk about diversification of funding resources - that we can get there. We need to set out our stall very clearly as to where we want to be in order to address those ills, such as storage, which the Deputy has identified.

In a way, the library has been under the surface in terms of its profile, almost as though the nation had forgotten about it. We need to wake ourselves up. We are the custodians of huge national treasures. The problem with the National Library is that we do not have evidence - like potholes - if there is a problem. It is just there and can be the victim of inertia.

Collaboration is another strand of our strategy. We do not just want to talk about collaboration; we want to activate something. There are institutions like the universities with which we can establish collaboration. It is our intention to pursue that line.