Books Are My Business: Jackie Lynam, poet and librarian

Jackie Lynam is a librarian with Dublin City Libraries, working in Cabra Library. Her poetry has been published in several journals and in 2021 she was shortlisted for the Anthony Cronin International Poetry Prize. She recently published Traces, a collection of her writing.

Jackie Lynam, poet and librarian.

How did you become a librarian?

I fell into libraries by accident, really. I had wanted to be a journalist and I did the two-year course in Rathmines; I was doing a bit of freelancing and not getting much work. I was on the panel for the libraries and I took the job in January, 1995, for two months. I’m still here, almost 30 years later. I got really lucky that I fell into a job that really suited me and gave me more scope than I ever imagined. I went to college for three years to get my librarianship qualification, which was amazing. It has opened up my world, I thought journalism was going to be the path for me but being a librarian turned out to be my true vocation.