Blog 3: The Bodleian Library

The Bodleian is the second largest library in England a famous library, which is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It is used as a research library at Oxford University and simultaneously acts as a legal deposit library. Similar to the State Library of Victoria having the staggering range and value of their resources, items cannot be borrowed and are used as reference tools only.

This academic library was established in 1602. The library follows strict procedure one that caught my interest, which reinforces that items must be kept in its original enclosure

 “I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, nor to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library.”

                                               **sourced from StasoSphere

 No entrance is allowed to patrons who don’t agree with the speculated terms and conditions.

Some of the older collection from the 19^th century is digitized and the library has collected manuscripts many of which have been generously donated to the library. The library has retained an impressive array of resources.  Manuscript collections: The Ashmole Manuscripts, The Carte Manuscripts, The Douce Manuscripts, The Laud Manuscripts, the letters of the famous poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Individual manuscripts: The Codex Bodley, The Codex Ebnerianus,The Codex Laudianus, The Codex Laud, The Codex Mendoza, The Codex Tischendorfianus III, The Codex Tischendorfianus IV, The Huntington MS 17, the oldest manuscript with complete text of the four Gospels in Bohairic (Coptic), The Magna Carta ,The Song of Roland, The Vernon Manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. poet.a.1).

As the library has over 11 million items and growing in numbers are facing problems with storage space, the handling of older and decaying resources was worrisome. The architecture is stunning and filmmakers have taken advantage of their scenery. An example is Duke Humfrey's Library acting as the Hogwarts library in the first Harry Potter movie.

**sourced from HotelGuru

Reflection

It can be difficult when you are researching on your chosen topic and you are bombarded with excessive information and want to include every meticulous detail however I aimed to focus on key information which allured my interest. In the research process I used a popular encyclopedia available online.

Watch a a video on YouTube about the Bodleian Library

References:

Bodleian Library, 2010, Bodleian Library, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, viewed 3 September 2010, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodleian_Library >.