Dr. Sandra Collins:

We had a focus this year on the LGBTI+ community, for example. People who visit and engage with the library will see that we have an exhibition in the National Photographic Archive. It is a co-curated collection of photographs by Christopher Robson showing the evolution of Pride in Dublin, Ireland and the world, with the focus on Dublin Pride over the years and how that has changed. Mr. Robson died prior to the donation of the photographs and the exhibition was co-curated with his partner. We worked around that with Tonie Walsh to co-curate a year-long programme of events examining many aspects of activism, identity and representation. In addition, we worked with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and the LGBTI+ Youth Forum. We had a series of engagements with them, and that was fabulous in informing us regarding how we can better engage young people. When we do something in the area of diversity and inclusion, therefore, we want it to be authentic and co-curated. We want to work with the community concerned and then to build on that to engage and to provide new services and new ways of looking at our collections. That is important for us. Year-on-year, I would like us to add a new area of diversity into the communities that we work with every day.

The capital development project is our number one project for the next five years. One of the things about which I am most excited is the accessibility that it will bring to our beautiful building. We are neighbours and committee members will be familiar with our pillars. Not all the floors and spaces in our building are accessible to people with mobility challenges or those using wheelchairs, for example, and this situation is fundamentally contrary to our ethos and how we want to work. One of the core principles of the capital development project, therefore, is accessibility and equality for all in our services and in our buildings. It is an exciting initiative for us. Mr. McVey spoke about the digital dimension, and about digital engagement, digital collecting and digitisation. It is resource-intensive and skilled and expert work, but it pays great dividends. I flag that as our third area of importance to work on in the years ahead.