OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn
The Bodleian Library, Oxford is a marvellous place for bibliophiles! Above ground, it is gorgeous architecture and towering shelvesof books. Below ground, it is vast corridors of underground stacks where ancient writings whisper together.
As a student, I studied in the gorgeous Radcliffe Camera, (the Rad Cam), a rotunda with high windows and lots of theological texts. In the early 90s, we still requested books by finding them on a green screen computer and then writing a paper slip to give to a librarian. The book would be searched for and might appear hours or days later. The Rad Cam is just one of the Reading Rooms you can study in within the Bodleian.
The Duke Humfrey's is the oldest reading room in the Bodleian and contains special and rare book collections. Only pencils are allowed in this room! It was used as Hogwart's Library in the Harry Potter movies.
Oxford is renowned for it's traditional outlook, and yet the Bodleian is looking to the future of digital archiving for its book collection. The futureArch project is developing a system for hybrid archival collections as well as addressing material that is born digital. The Bodleian receives a copy of every book published in the UK so they must be looking at ebooks and archiving copies of those too! They are also looking back at preserving manuscripts and understanding old texts, so don't worry if you love the old ways.
Click here for some images of the rare and famous books that the Bodleian has.
There is also a Bodleian podcast including The Magna Carta at Oxford, celebrating Milton and the Creation story as told in the Bible, Torah and the Qur'an. Wonderful stuff!
Images: Rad Cam by Flickr CC Prabhu B
View Comments (0)