Finding Peace Among the Periodicals: Reflections on working in an Academic Library

Congratulations to Holly Meade Kennedy from Maynooth University Library, whose blog post was highly commended in the CONUL Training and Development Library Assistant Blog Awards 2025

The MU campus begins to stir as 8.30 am approaches, and the quiet is broken only by the faint click of my staff card scanning at the library entrance. Steam curls from my cup as I unlock my computer and take the first sip from the water bottle I will inevitably forget exists for the rest of the day. I answer an email from a lecturer and double-tap a post on Instagram from a fellow academic library reminding students they can’t eat in shared spaces. I laugh as I remember the delivery driver who dropped off four pizzas to waiting students one evening during exam time, and how the sight of them amenably sitting on the green across from the library sharing slices in the fading daylight was oddly heartwarming. They had found the perfect loophole - food delivered straight to campus, but technically not eaten in the library. It was a masterclass in student logic: bend the rules just enough to survive, but not quite break them.

(Image is my own) Maynooth University Library 

I glance at this week’s to-do list. A meeting on Tuesday about our Athena Swan gender equality initiative. A webinar on Wednesday on ‘The Importance of Bibliodiversity’. Social media content to post about Pride Month on Friday. These are things I care about, and I feel lucky I get to engage with them as part of my professional world. My phone buzzes to tell me the New Yorker has taken their monthly fee in exchange for a digital subscription and I begin to roll my eyes until I remember how much I’ve spent on coffee this month and feel a sense of perspective.

I sip my cappuccino while it’s still hot - to get my money’s worth – and feel a sense of gratitude as I notice the peace that has fallen over my mornings since I took up my role in MU Library. Coming from a background in teaching and media, unsustainable levels of busyness became the norm. I didn’t go to work every day; I continuously existed within it. Assignment corrections late into Saturday evenings were standard and having completed three degrees along the way, I had forgotten what it meant to switch off.

(Image is my own) : Information sign for the MU Nature Connection Trail

But my life came to a halt three years ago with the passing of my dad, and the anxiety that accompanied my grief caused me to reflect on the role that work and study had come to play in my life. I began to reset my view on things when one rainy Tuesday evening my counsellor said “we’re on this earth to be, not to do.” It takes the right person at the right time to say something that strikes you exactly the way you need it to, and from there I began to consciously look at the work I wanted to spend my days doing.

I adore writing, and feel passionately about its therapeutic effects as it allows me to remove the scramble of thoughts in my head and share them with others as a means to connect. I wanted to find a job that would allow me to be creative and have time to write while still existing within the academic space as I am a self-confessed nerd. I attended a Montessori school up to the age of 12, and this alternative way of learning grounded my passion and belief in the transformative power education holds.

(Image is my own) ST Patrick's MU Chapel

As a past student of MU, I cherished the sense of community alive on campus and the beautiful grounds it exists within. So when I saw a job advertised in the university library, I began to think there may be a way for me to merge my passions and skills to achieve a work-life balance us perfectionists have only heard about! I began working here a year ago and within that time I’ve learned the work you do can be important, innovative and plentiful without being all-consuming. I am still learning about balance, but now when the work day is complete, I sign off without guilt.

Amid global threats to peace, equality and democracy, it's timely to reflect on how fortunate we are to work within the Irish academic library field. The quiet environment of the buildings we occupy, the grounds that surround them, the routines librarianship is built upon, the inclusivity of the community, the genuine collegiality of the people who work in the sector – these are all elements that lend themselves to a positive relationship to work, particularly for those of us dealing with anxiety in some way.

Routine, structure, respect and stillness – these can be truly cherished if you’ve lived without them. Like those students with their four pizzas and a plan, I’ve found my own loophole – learning to work and live with both purpose and peace.