![]() ![]() But doing collaborative exhibitions of the kind that we're very excited to be working with the State Library of Victoria on gives a whole new layer of. ![]() had to visit the library physically, and obviously through digitalisation of publications we can share those research materials and great kind of materials of world culture. Richard: Well, you know, we've been amassing collections in the university for almost 900 years, and for large chunks of that time, really, they've been exclusively the domain of scholars, and the international community of scholars who've visited. Can you tell us a little bit about how you see a project such as that within the roles of the Bodleian? It's all actually funded philanthropically from private individuals and foundations and it's going from strength to strength.Ĭlare: As you know, the State Library of Victoria is delighted to be working in partnership with the Bodleian Libraries to present our next international exhibition, which will be in 2012, called Love and devotion:from Persia and beyond, and this will be based on the wonderful collections of Persian manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries. And we run colloquia, seminars, lectures, we have a visiting fellows program, and we also run kind of research projects in collaboration with the academic community. We started it in 2005 and it's really an attempt to find a place to bring scholars together with librarians, conservators, digital technologists, to bring different communities together to study the book as a kind of. Richard: That's a kind of relatively new initiative. Can you tell us a little bit about the Centre? Richard: Yeah, so I'm now responsible for special collections – that's rare books, manuscripts, music, maps, and oriental collections – and then for IT, so our big digital library activities, also for conservation, kind of traditional book and paper conservation, and also for our kind of outward-facing activities, like exhibitions, our historic venues activities, our publishing office, and our retail operations, our shop and licensing activities.Ĭlare: Mmm, and part of your role, I know, is as Director for the Centre for the Study of the Book. ![]() a wonderful place.Ĭlare: So you were mentioning just the whole complex of libraries that, in terms of your responsibility as Associate Director, you obviously have a very broad role in relation to all of those. ![]() It's one of those kind of iconic rooms where you just go in and kind of inhale centuries of learning, and it's still a wonderful. And then Sir Thomas Bodley came along and refurbished the library, put a new roof on it, fitted it out with modern bookshelves, and persuaded his friends to stock it full of books, and it opened in 1602 as the public library of the University of Oxford.Ĭlare: Mmm, and Duke Humfrey's library now, obviously, occupies a really central position in those historic buildings at Oxford, doesn't it? Then, about a century later during the Reformation, and the university had built a special room to house Duke Humfrey's books, which was ransacked in the middle of the 16th century. And then the collection grew to the middle of the 15th century when a man called Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, who was the brother of Henry V, gave the university about 400 manuscripts, and they were ransacked. And the medieval library was established in the early 13th century as just a few books that could be borrowed in return for depositing money in a book chest. So the departmental libraries for English and modern languages and a whole host of subjects are all actually organised under the umbrella of the Bodleian, as well as the historic library that was founded in 1602.Īnd we were founded, really, or re-founded, in the early 17th century by a man called Sir Thomas Bodley, having had origins as a medieval library. We have around 12-million printed volumes, thousands and thousands of linear metres of rare books and manuscripts and archives, all sorts of other kinds of collections, and we are now a kind of federation of libraries, which are centrally funded within the university. Richard: Yeah, well, the Bodleian is the main university library at Oxford and it was founded in 1602, and today is the second largest library in the UK. if I could ask you a little bit about the Bodleian Libraries, their role within the university, their make-up and a little bit about their founding. I'm very pleased to be here.Ĭlare: We might start, Richard, by. Clare Williamson: I'm here speaking with Richard Ovenden who is Keeper of Special Collections and Associate Director of the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford. ![]()
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