Bodleian Library, Oxford

July 17, 2008
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/

Sydney Hicks showed half our our class around this venerable institution.

The Bodleian Library is just over 400 years old. It was founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley, whose vision was to serve the republic of the learned - scholars everywhere, not just those who were at Oxford. His vision is still being implemented: of the 50,000 registered readers that they receive each year, more than 5% come from outside of the United Kingdom. It is a reference only library that includes nine dependent libraries spread throughout Oxford. They have two and a half thousand reader's places in those libraries and receive 4.5 million download requests from their electronic resources. In summary, they are a rather well-used institution.

Their long-term goal is to digitize everything, as digitization offers tremendous advantages for conservation, access, and searchability. Mr. Hicks stressed that the authentic artifacts are what makes them a library, however. They opened the library with 2,000 books; now they have over nine million. They also have one and a quarter million maps, including tapestry maps and even a drinking map that was published by the Temperance Society. Their libraries house one and a half million pamphlet-type resources, 30 million pieces of printed music, and 10,000 medieval manuscripts. Like the British Library, the Bodleian Library is a library of legal deposit - that is, they are entitled to a free copy of anything published in this country.

Mr. Hicks entertained us with some Harry Potter related trivia. The library naturally has many copies of the Harry Potter books in multiple languages. They even have the Latin translation of at least the first two of the series. It was apparently difficult to translate these books into what used to be the "universal language of academia" because of modern words like 'car'. The hall in which we began our tour had been used in one of the films as the infirmary (and nearby Christ Church was used as a model for the great hall).

We were also told about the school and the architecture of the room. The motto of Oxford (translated from Latin) is "The Lord is my light." The Divinity School is the core and oldest part of the building (around the 1470's). The plan was modified to add a library when they received a gift of 300 manuscripts from Duke Humphrey. Mr. Hicks pointed out the various carvings on the ceiling, which include initials, heraldry, divine symbols, the paganistic Green Man, the wheat sheaves of the Kemp family repeated over and over again, and Mary and child. The last symbol is rare to find in Oxford because of the destruction of such "Catholic" symbols during Reformation times. The library also suffered greatly from the Restoration. By about 1550, the library was mostly destroyed. Statues, stained glass windows, the crucifix, and even St. Peter's head were removed.

We then progressed into Convocation House, which was the meeting room for the institution's governing body. (Convocation consists of everyone who obtains a degree, and it is the responsibility of Convocation - meaning Great Congregation - to elect the chancellor. The chancellor serves as a national ambassador for the institution, while his vice chancellor conducts more every day affairs.) We were also told that many, including Nelson Mandela, had received honorary degrees in this room.

Finally we went upstairs to the library itself. It is second in size nationally only to the British Library. They acquire new materials through both purchases and donations and receive around three thousands new books a week in addition to periodicals. The library had beautifully painted arches and ceiling panels. Formerly the books were chained to the lecterns, but when many of the original manuscripts were decided to be "too Catholic", nearly all the books in Humphrey's collection were destroyed (bits and pieces of the books were given to tradesmen to use in their day to day work). Bodley had to nearly refound the library. He had been a student at Oxford as well as an ambassador for Queen Elizabeth, and he had travelled throughout Europe and learned many languages. Between the fortunes of himself and his wife, he had a considerable amount of wealth, and being a man of vision, he offered to repair the library. The ceiling was panelled with the University's coat of arms, and he provided bookcases for the 2,000 original books, which were mostly in the academic languages of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, but also in modern languages because he wanted it to be a global library. In fact, the very first book was in Portuguese. Bodley had a catalog printed and distributed throughout Europe to encourage other scholars to visit. The books were chained because it encouraged benefactors to donate to what could clearly be seen as a permanent, premise-only collection. By 1610 the library had grown so much that it needed an extension, which was completed in 1612.

They did not remove the chains from the books until the mid-1700's. We were told an amusing story about King Charles I - he was staying at Christ College and wanted a book sent to him there, but he received a copy of the rule book instead. They were quite firm about their no books off the premises policy.

Many of their special collections require handling by gloves and the close attention of librarians and trained specialists. The Bodleian has an Egyptian marriage certificate on papyrus from 527 B.C., the Gutenberg bible, the Magna Carta, Paradise Lost...thousands upon thousands of irreplaceable documents.

Librarians are the ones who actually retrieve the books. With over 200 kilometers of occupied shelving, storage is a necessity. The New Bodleian opened before World War II, and its center, an eleven story book stack, holds five million books. Underground conveyor belts and courier vans bring books from the storage facilities to the readers. They make the scholarly books more accessible and store less used works like children's books and fiction, which go into a facility they call Deep Store out in the country.

While we were standing in the Arts end of the library, Mr. Hicks returned once again to digitization. Although he is in favor of it, he feels it will never replace the actual book. For example, the library has a copy of Shakespeare's First Folio from 1623. They can tell by the wear and tear on the book which plays - and which scenes of which plays - were the most popular. According to their copy, the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet is the most popular, Julius Caesar the second most popular play, and Macbeth the fifth.

Some of the digitalized material can be found at http://www.artstor.org/.

They are currently planning to build a new depository that will house 8.25 million books. It will have temperature and humidity control and robotic arms that get books (cased in boxes) off the shelves. It will not have any oxygen, which will prevent both fire and infestation. Construction has been delayed, however, because they worry about the building site being on a flood plain.