On 7 February 1852, Wall resigned as Librarian, though he was allowed to retain a set of Library keys and have exclusive use of the Librarian's Room for a further 5 years. He remained a Senior Fellow and, until his death 10 years later, continued as Vice-Provost, an office he had held simultaneously with that of Librarian since 1847. There could be only one successor – the man who had effectively run the Library for the previous 20 years. James Henthorn Todd, elected Librarian for an initial period of 5 years from the date of Wall's resignation, was then 47 and the Professor of Hebrew and Senior Lecturer at Trinity, as well as Secretary of the Royal Irish Academy and a founder of both St Columba's College, Dublin, and the Irish Archaeological Society. (See Figure 11.)

Though the Library had been without Todd's involvement for only 2 years, it was already showing signs of a lack of direction, and the report that he produced for the Board during his second year in office was a depressing one. The books in the gallery were ‘in very great disorder’; there was a substantial backlog of cataloguing (though the appointment of an additional Library clerk had already started to reduce this); the shelf-lists were not properly written up and contained ‘perplexing irregularities’; one of the Library clerks had been dismissed for neglect of duty; one of the cleaners had stolen some books; and, finally, a ‘want of room’ was being felt, because the carpenters had been slow in installing bookcases in the gallery – and even when those were completed they would provide space for only about a further 4 years’ intake. Cataloguing and space were to dominate Todd's tenure of office.