“It’s always a bittersweet moment to think about endings, but all endings are also beginnings,” Witmore said in a phone interview Tuesday evening. “And I’m happy to give the Folger some time to think about where the next leader should go, and who that should be.”

“We have accepted Mike’s plans reluctantly, but with the deepest appreciation for his remarkable and inspirational leadership across more than a decade,” D. Jarrett Arp, chair of the Folger’s board of governors, wrote in a letter on behalf of the board that was posted on the Folger’s website.

When Witmore came to the library from the University of Wisconsin in 2011, he expressed his ambitions to make it a cultural “destination” early on, telling The Washington Post, “The greatest challenge we face in the humanities is to show those who do not know what we do what we do. It is better to show than to tell. The Folger is one of those places where there is plenty to show.”

By 2013, he and the Folger’s board had adopted a strategic plan for what would become an $80.5 million renovation, including a 12,000-square-foot underground expansion and a new vault to display, for the first time, its entire collection of 82 Shakespeare first folios. Construction began in March 2020, and the Folger’s various events — readings, book clubs, concerts and plays — scattered to temporary homes throughout the city.

Asked whether the pandemic changed the way he thought about the Folger’s mission and its reopening, Witmore said, “I think the world learned a lot of lessons through the pandemic. The turn which we had begun years before, toward a more inclusive vision of the arts and humanities, and one that is specifically grounded in the District of Columbia, which is our home — that was even more clear after the last couple of years.”

With the reopening this fall and a rededication slated for spring 2024, Witmore’s last months on the job will be far from quiet. After he leaves, he said, “I’ll probably do some writing — but, you know, for the next year I’m really just focused on the Folger.”

“I’m most excited to open the doors,” he said. “I think the renovation is truly transformative. We know what’s coming, but the public doesn’t, and it’s gorgeous.” The facility will be able to welcome thousands more visitors each month, said Wittmore, and its expanded footprint is also meant to allow the various pieces of the Folger’s programming to work more smoothly together.

The search for a new director will begin in the next few weeks, and will “continue to call for a unique combination of relevant expertise, management skill and dynamic leadership,” Arp wrote in an email to The Post, adding that it will be essential for the Folger’s next leader to be deeply committed to “a more accessible, inclusive and open engagement with the community.”

Asked what advice he has for the Folger’s next leader, Witmore laughed and then said: “This is a place that is full of wonders and even greater potential.”