| Bodleian Library | |
|---|---|
| Entrance to the Library, with the coats-of-arms of several Oxford colleges | |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Type | Academic library |
| Established | 1602 |
| Location | Broad Street, Oxford |
| Collection | |
| Items collected | books, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, maps, prints, drawings and manuscripts |
| Size | 11 million volumes[1] |
| Legal deposit | Included in the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 |
| Access and use | |
| Access requirements | Old Schools Quadrangle, Divinity School, Exhibition Room and Bodleian Library Gift Shop open to the public |
| Members | Students and fellows of University of Oxford |
| Other information | |
| Director | Sarah E. Thomas |
| Website | www.bodley.ox.ac.uk |
The Bodleian Library ( /ˈbɒdliən/ or /bɒdˈliːən/), the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library. Known to Oxford scholars as "Bodley" or simply "the Bod", under the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 it is one of six legal deposit libraries for works published in the United Kingdom[2][3] and under Irish Law it is entitled to request a copy of each book published in the Republic of Ireland.[4] Though University members may borrow some books from dependent libraries (such as the Radcliffe Science Library),[5] the Bodleian operates principally as a reference library and in general documents may not be removed from the reading rooms.
The Library occupies a group of five buildings near Broad Street: these range in date from the late medieval Duke Humfrey's Library to the New Bodleian of the 1930s. Since the 19th century a number of underground stores have been built below parts of these.
Today, the Bodleian also includes several off-site storage areas as well as many other libraries in central Oxford:
Before being granted access to the library, new readers are required to agree to a formal declaration. This declaration was traditionally oral, but is now usually made by signing a letter to the same effect — ceremonies in which readers recite the declaration are still performed for those who wish to take them, these occur primarily at the start of the University's Michaelmas term. The English text of the declaration is as follows:
This is a translation of the traditional Latin oath (the original version of which did not forbid tobacco smoking, though libraries were then unheated because fires were so hazardous).[6]
Whilst the Bodleian Library, in its current incarnation, has a continuous history dating back to 1602, its roots date back even further. The first purpose-built library known to have existed in Oxford was founded in the fourteenth century by Thomas Cobham, Bishop of Worcester. This small collection of chained books was situated above the north side of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin on the High Street.[7][8] This collection continued to grow steadily, but when, between 1435 and 1437 Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (brother of Henry V of England), donated a great collection of manuscripts, the space was deemed insufficient and a larger building was required. A suitable room was finally built above the Divinity School, and completed in 1488. This room continues to be known as Duke Humfrey’s Library.[9]
The late sixteenth century saw the library go through a period of decline (to the extent that the library’s furniture was sold, and only three of the original books belonging to Duke Humfrey remained in the collection).[9] It was not until 1598 that the library began to thrive once more, when Thomas Bodley (a former fellow of Merton College) wrote to the Vice Chancellor of the University offering to support the development of the library: "where there hath bin hertofore a publike library in Oxford: which you know is apparent by the rome it self remayning, and by your statute records I will take the charge and cost upon me, to reduce it again to his former use."[10] Duke Humfrey’s Library was refitted, and Bodley donated a number of his own books to furnish it. The library was formally re-opened on 8 November 1602 under the name “Bodleian Library” (officially Bodley's Library).[9]
Bodley’s collecting interests were varied; according to the library's historian Ian Philip, as early as June 1603 he was attempting to source manuscripts from Turkey, and it was during “the same year that the first Chinese book was acquired.”[11] In 1610, Bodley made an agreement with the Stationers' Company in London to put a copy of every book registered with them in the library. The Bodleian collection grew so fast that the building was expanded between 1610–1612, (known as the Arts End) and again in 1634–1637. When John Selden died in 1654, he left the Bodleian his large collection of books and manuscripts. The later addition to Duke Humfrey’s Library continues to be known as the "Selden End".
By the time of Bodley’s death in 1612, further expansion to the library was being planned. The Schools Quadrangle (sometimes referred to as the "Old Schools Quadrangle", or the "Old Library") was built between 1613 and 1619 by adding three wings to the Proscholium and Arts End. Its tower forms the main entrance to the library, and is known as the Tower of the Five Orders. The Tower is so named because it is ornamented, in ascending order, with the columns of each of the five orders of classical architecture: Doric, Tuscan, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite.
The three wings of the quadrangle have three floors: rooms on the ground and upper floors of the quadrangle (excluding Duke Humfrey’s library, above the Divinity School) were originally used as lecture space and an art gallery. The lecture rooms are still indicated by the inscriptions over the doors (see illustration). As the library’s collections expanded, these rooms were gradually taken over. One of the schools is now used to host exhibitions of the library’s treasures, whilst the others are used as offices and meeting rooms for the library administrators.
The agreement with the Stationers' Company meant that the growth of stock was constant and there were also a number of large bequests and acquisitions for other reasons. Until the establishment of the British Museum in 1753 the Bodleian was effectively the national library of England. By then the Bodleian, Cambridge University Library and the Royal Library were the most extensive book collections in England and Wales.
The astronomer Thomas Hornsby observed the transit of Venus from the tower of the five orders in 1769.[12]
By the late 18th century, further growth of the library demanded more expansion space. In 1860, the library was allowed to take over the adjacent building, known as the Radcliffe Camera. In 1861, the library’s medical and scientific collections were transferred to the Radcliffe Science Library, which had been built farther north next to the University Museum.
The Clarendon Building was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and was built between 1711 and 1715, originally to house the printing presses of the Oxford University Press. It was vacated by the Press in the early nineteenth century, and used by the university for administrative purposes. In 1975 it was handed over to the Bodleian Library, and now provides office and meeting space for senior members of staff.[13]
In 1911, the Copyright Act[14] (now superseded by the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003) continued the Stationers' agreement by making the Bodleian one of the six (at that time) libraries covering legal deposit in the United Kingdom where a copy of each book copyrighted must be deposited.
Between 1909 and 1912, an underground bookstack was constructed beneath the Radcliffe Camera and Radcliffe Square.[15] In 1914, the total number of books in the library’s collections breached the 1 million mark.[16] By the 1920s, the Library needed further expansion space, and in 1937 building work began on the New Bodleian building, opposite the Clarendon Building on the north-east corner of Broad Street.
The New Bodleian was designed by architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. Construction was completed in 1940. The building was of an innovative ziggurat design, with 60% of the bookstack below ground level.[17][18] A tunnel under Broad Street connects the Old and New Bodleian buildings, and contains a pedestrian walkway, a mechanical book conveyor and a pneumatic Lamson tube system which was used for book orders until an electronic automated stack request system was introduced in 2002.[19] The Lamson tube system was used by readers requesting manuscripts to be delivered to Duke Humfrey’s Library until it was turned off in July 2009. In 2010, it was announced that the conveyor, which has been transporting books under Broad Street since the 1940s would be shut down and dismantled. The shutdown date is 20 August 2010.[20][21] The New Bodleian closed on 29 July 2011.
The Bodleian Group now cares for some 11 million items on 117 miles of shelving, and has a staff of over 400.[16] It is the second largest library in the UK (behind the British Library). The continued growth of the library has resulted in a severe shortage of storage space. Over 1.5 million items are currently stored in locations outside Oxford, including a disused salt mine in Cheshire.[22] In 2007 and 2008, in an effort to obtain better and more capacious storage facilities for the library’s collections, Oxford University Library Services (OULS) tried to obtain planning permission to build a new book depository on the Osney Mead site, to the south west of Oxford city centre. However, this application was unsuccessful and the new Book Storage Facility was instead constructed at a site on the outskirts of Swindon.[23] This Book Storage Facility, which cost £26 million, opened in October 2010 and has 153 miles (246 kilometres) of shelving, including 3,224 bays with 95,000 shelf levels, and 600 map cabinets to hold 1.2 million maps and other items.[24]
There are also plans to remodel the New Bodleian building, to provide improved storage facilities for rare and fragile material, as well as better facilities for readers and visitors.[25] In March 2010 the group of libraries known collectively as "Oxford University Library Services" was renamed "The Bodleian Libraries", thus allowing those Oxford members outside the Bodleian to acquire the gloss of the Bodleian brand, albeit with some loss of their own identities in an Oxford in which the Bodleian has sometimes been seen as overshadowing other important libraries within the University.[26]
The library operates a strict policy on copyright. Until fairly recently, personal photocopying of library material was not permitted, as there was concern that copying and excessive handling would result in damage. However individuals may now copy most material produced after 1900, and a staff-mediated service is provided for certain types of material dated between 1801 and 1900. Handheld scanners and digital cameras are also permitted for use on most post-1900 publications and digital cameras may also be used, with permission, with older material.[27] The Library will supply digital scans of most pre-1801 material. Microform copies have been made of many of the most fragile items in the library's collection, and these are substituted for the originals whenever possible. The library has a close relationship with the Oxford Digital Library, which is in the process of digitising some of the many rare and unusual items in the University's collection.
The head of the Bodleian Library is known as "Bodley's Librarian". The first librarian, Thomas James, was selected by Bodley in 1599, and the university confirmed James in his post in 1602.[30][31] Bodley wanted his librarian to be "some one that is noted and knowen for a diligent Student, and in all his conuersation to be trustie, actiue, and discreete, a graduat also and a Linguist, not encombred with mariage, nor with a benefice of Cure",[32] although James was able to persuade Bodley to let him get married and to become Rector of St Aldate's Church, Oxford.[31]
In all, 24 people have served as Bodley's Librarian; their levels of diligence have varied over the years. Thomas Lockey (1660–1665) was regarded as not fit for the post,[33] John Hudson (1701–1719) has been described as "negligent if not incapable",[34] and John Price (1768–1813) was accused by a contemporary scholar of "a regular and constant neglect of his duty".[35] The current Librarian, Sarah Thomas, was appointed in 2007; she is the first woman to hold the position, and the second Librarian (after her predecessor, Reginald Carr) also to be Director of Oxford University Library Services. Thomas, an American, is also the first foreign librarian to run the Bodleian.[36]
The Bodleian is used as background scenery in Dorothy L. Sayers Gaudy Night, features in Michael White's Equinox, and is one of the libraries consulted by Christine Greenaway (one of Bodley's librarians) in Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse novel The Wench is Dead. The denouement of Michael Innes's Operation Pax (1951) is set in an imaginary version of the underground bookstack, reached at night by sliding down the 'Mendip cleft', a chute concealed in Radcliffe Square.
Since J.R.R. Tolkien had studied philology at Oxford and eventually became a professor, he was very familiar with the Red Book of Hergest which is kept at the Bodleian on behalf of Jesus College. Tolkien later created his own fictional Red Book of Westmarch telling the story of The Lord of the Rings. Many of Tolkien's manuscripts are now at the library.
Historian and novelist Deborah Harkness, set much of the early part of her 2011 novel, A Discovery of Witches, in the Bodleian, particularly the Seldon End. The novel also features one of the library's Ashmolean manuscripts (Ashmole 782) as a central element of the book.
The Library's fine architecture has made it a favourite location for filmmakers, representing either Oxford University or other locations. It can be seen in Brideshead Revisited (1981 TV serial), Another Country (1984), The Madness of King George III (1994), and the first two Harry Potter films, in which the Divinity School doubles as the Hogwarts hospital wing and Duke Humfrey's Library as the Hogwarts library.[37] In The New World (2005), the library edifice is portrayed as the entrance to the Royal Court of the English monarchy. The Bodleian also featured in the Inspector Morse televised spin off Lewis, in the episode "And the Moonbeams Kiss the Sea", where a murder takes place in the basement.
Also, the first few words of the Latin version of the reader's promise seen above (Do fidem me nullum librum vel) can be found on the linguist's hat in the 1996 miniseries Gulliver's Travels.[38]
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