With a career that began between the shelves of an antiquarian music shop, Chris Banks would argue she's no conventional librarian.

While music may have been her first passion, Chris comes well prepared for the analytical and inquisitive environment of one of the world’s foremost science institutions.

“My first ambition was actually to be a detective; I just really loved the idea of investigating things,” says Chris. “When I was at school I saw a programme with H. C. Robbins-Landon, a Haydn Scholar, who was making historical deductions from manuscripts. It was this evidence-based approach to analysing music that inspired me to go on and study historical musicology.”

No stranger to London, Chris spent 20 years at the British Library as a Junior Curator in their musical collections, eventually rising to Head of Reference and Research, responsible for the front facing subjects teams.

But it was then that her career took a somewhat unexpected turn as she moved into Higher Education. After giving a lecture at the University of Aberdeen on a music manuscript, she was approached with the news that they were looking for a head librarian, and after learning about the role, decided to apply.

Having landed the job Chris then found herself in charge of spending £60million on building an innovative and architecturally striking new library, which was opened by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in 2012.

After spending nearly 6 years at Aberdeen she was then tempted back to London for a new challenge here at Imperial. Starting in September last year, a major focus for Chris at Imperial will be the challenges of open access and research data management – something her background in special collections will help her to tackle.

“By looking at a music manuscript or a composer archive you can learn so much about the author through examining the physical remains of their creative process. We’ve got some of the best scientific brains in the world here at Imperial and there is so much in their research method and raw data – their creative process if you will – that we can learn from,” she says.

Chris and her team are working in partnership with academics devising open access and research data management services that ensure data survival and availability for re-use in different ways.

Having overseen the creation of a brand new library whilst at Aberdeen, this issue of space is one Chris knows she will have to deal with here at the College too. But rather than being an issue of needing more space per se, it’s how we use it, she says.

“Historically we have tended to build library space for one learning style – the quiet studious worker. The way in which students are working now though is very different and we see a whole range of styles, such as more group and interactive work. So it’s about creating spaces where they can exist happily side by side.”

Despite changes in the way students use libraries and the increasing focus on digital resources (92.4 percent of the Library acquisitions budget is spent on digital material), Chris doesn’t think students will be shunning the traditional book anytime soon.

“What is really interesting is that many students actually prefer physical textbooks. You can mentally map out where information is on a page and picture it in the 3D space of the book in your mind. There are a lot of people who still really value that for certain kinds of reading and reference.”

Aside from her day job Chris is also looking forward to being immersed in the musical life of the capital once again. “When I lived in London previously I was heavily involved in making music and sang with the London Philharmonic Choir. This time I’m deliberately not jumping back into that and focussing on being a consumer of music instead.”

Although being just round the corner from the Royal Albert Hall, the call of the stage will surely always be there for Chris.