She took a position at Southlands Teacher Training College, now a part of the University of Roehampton while she studied for the associateship of the Library Association.
Her research and dissertation for the fellowship of the Library Association was titled The woodcut ornament stocks of the Dublin printers 1551–1700 with lists of unsigned works identified as from their presses for which she received distinction.
[1][3] She was in charge of the department of older printed books, which was housed in the reconstructed east pavilion of the Old Library, which opened to readers in 1968.
This department initially handled books from pre-1800, but went on to cover the entire contents of the Old Library and Gallery which included 19th century material.
She identified gaps in the library's collections on 18th century English literature, drama and language, as well as Irish political, economic and social works, and sought to fill these.
When funds were available she directed the purchase of collections such as that of Jonathan Swift and related objects at the T. A. Hollick sale at Sotheby's in 1976 with money from the trustees of the estate of Alfred Chester Beatty.
Writing of the launch of the Festschrift on June 9, 2005 in The Book Collector Toby Barnard observed that she was "a figure who linked the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries and, in doing so, saved and illuminated vital aspects of Irish culture.