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On This Day: University of Oxford's library opened
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The Radcliffe Camera (main research library), viewed from the University Church.
November 8, 1602: The main research library at the University of Oxford opens. The first Oxford collection of books and manuscripts was kept in a library built by Thomas Cobham in the 1300s. The collection was available for use only in the building as the books were chained to the bookcases. The precious manuscripts were safe and only the select were permitted entrance. Between 1435 and 1437 Duke Humphrey (King Henry V's brother) donated a great number of manuscripts and a larger space was needed. A special room for the collection was built above the Divinity School. The library declined. The furniture was sold off and by the end of the 1500s only three of Humphrey's manuscripts remained.
In 1598 Thomas Bodley wrote to the Vice Chancellor of Oxford and offered to support the development of a library. Bodley has been a Fellow at Merton College and their first Lecturer in Ancient Greek. Merton College is one of the constituent college of the University of Oxford. He went abroad to continue his studies and to help with diplomatic relations between England and several European countries. He tired of the political intrigue and resigned from public service. He had married a wealthy widow and as a result was compelled to resign his fellowship at Merton. Regardless, he was feted at Oxford upon his return to England and took up the quest of restoring the library.
Bodley was able to donate his own considerable personal library as a starting point. He instituted the creation of the "Benefactors' Book" in 1602 whereby donations were publically proclaimed. The book was bound and put on display in 1604. The concept was not original but for over 400 years the practice has helped to assure a steady stream of support from friends of the library. The Duke's library grew and officially re-opened on this date renamed the Bodleian Library.
The library is one of the oldest in Europe and in Britain it is the second largest with only the British Library larger. Affectionately called "Bodley" or "the Bod" by Oxford scholars, it is one of the six legal deposit libraries in the United Kingdom. All books published in Great Britain and Ireland may receive a request for a copy to be placed in the stacks. There are over 11 million volumes held at the over 100 libraries at Oxford. Sarah Thomas is Bodley's Librarian and Director. She is the first woman and first American to hold the post which she took on in February 2007.
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"What is more important in a library than anything else - than everything else - is the fact that it exists." - Archibald MacLeish
"Libraries: The medicine chest of the soul." - Library at Thebes, inscription over the door
"We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth." - John Lubbock
"A great library contains the diary of the human race." - George Mercer Dawson
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