The public face of the National Library of Scotland has changed out of all recognition since I used to occasionally broach its forbidding portals as a student. I expect the staff were just as nice people in those days as they are today, but the atmosphere of serious and silent scholarship that was, with its overtones of exclusion, has since been lightened. They have welcomed the general public with open arms to their exhibitions and talks for some years now and they have a super website but they have topped it all with the installation of a bright and cheerful visitor reception point cum cafe cum shop. There is even a pavement section to their cafe.

Perhaps the reading room maintains a more dour tradition but I am unlikely ever to find myself poring over a dusty volume therein in place of watching the world go by on George IVth Bridge while sipping a coffee.

Last night the Scottish Government's Chief Scientific Adviser, Anne Glover was at the NLS delivering an entertaining and stimulating talk about what had inspired her to become a scientist in the first place and had kept her at it. From stories of prodding earthworms as a toddler, seeing The Fantastic Voyage at ten (I remember the trailer though I never saw the film) and watching a school mate have his trousers whipped off his hurdies when they burst into flames as a result of his having pocketed some sodium in a science class, to being captivated by bio-luminescence during a midnight swim, her enthusiasm for science was catching.

I left the talk thinking that if I were 50 years younger and a girl there would be no stopping me.