AHRC boss named National Library of Scotland chair hails the ‘treasure houses of our past’

Professor CHRISTOPHER SMITH has been appointed chair of the National Library of Scotland by Cabinet Secretary for Culture, ANGUS ROBERTSON.

Executive chair of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Smith is also international champion for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and a member of the governing bodies of Science Europe and the Global Research Council.

He has worked at the University of St Andrews for more than thirty years and was previously director of the British School at Rome.

Robertson said he looked forward to working with Smith at the organisation considered the guardian of the printed and recorded memory of Scotland, pointing to the academic’s “illustrious career” and “wealth of experience at prestigious bodies”.

Smith begins his four-year term at the institution, which was recently at the centre of a censorship row over the exhibition of a gender-critical book in January, succeeding Sir DRUMMOND BONE, who was appointed in 2021.

Writing on LinkedIn, Smith said: “Libraries have been a core part of my work at AHRC and this will be a wonderful way to continue my long connection with the treasure houses of our past, a vital infrastructure of our communities and a guarantor of a future based on knowledge and sound information.”

He added: “Libraries are the custodians of our past, places of wonder and discovery for everyone, whatever their age, and critical to a future in which knowledge and truth remain prized.”