Bodleian Library

The Library bodléienne or in English Bodleian Library , founded in 1602, is most prestigious of the Bibliothèque S of the Université of Oxford.

History

The Library bodléienne “officially” is named Bodley' S Library , name fallen in disuse and that even the official site does not employ. Moreover, since centuries, it is familiarly called The Bod by the students, but also apart from their circle.

It finds part of its origin in the Duke Humphrey' S Library, founded with Oxford in 1488, after a first gift of enluminés manuscripts made by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester (1391-1447) to the Divinity School, but which were partially dispersed during the 16th century.

The collections of the Duke Humphrey' S Library and of the Divinity School were reconstituted and enriched by Thomas Bodley (of the Merton College) until reaching the number of 2.000 works, which were used as a basis documentary at the time of the formal foundation of Bodleian Library in 1602.

In 1610, Bodley made an agreement with the Stationers' Company to London to obtain a copy of each work recorded by this insitution. The increase in collections was such as it required a first enlarging of the buildings in 1610 - 1612, then another in 1634 - 1637.

With died from John Selden in 1654, Bodleian Library accepted a new considerable legacy of books and manuscripts.

In 1911, the Copyright Act renewed the agreement made in 1610 with the Stationers' Company , by doing of Bodleian one of the five libraries of Registration of copyright with the the United Kingdom.

Two underground storage spaces were built in 1913 under the Radcliffe Camera and Radcliffe Square , while, in the Années 1930, was brought into service a new building combining storage spaces and rooms of reading. Connecting old and new the buildings, a tunnel was dug under Broad Street , equipped with a mobile pavement, a mechanical system of convoying of the works and with a control device of the work by pneumatic tube.

The library today

The collections of the Library bodléienne are divided today into several outvessel fuel sites of storage, in addition to the nine libraries “branches”, all located at Oxford:

the Bodleian Japanese Library
the Bodleian Law Library
the Hooke Library
the Indian Institute Library
the Eastern Institute Library
the Philosophy Library
the Radcliffe Science Library
the Bodleian Library off the Commonwealth and African Studies At Rhodos House
the Vere Harmsworth Library

The various sites of the Library bodléienne join together at the present time 9 million articles arranged on 176 km of shelves, and permanently offer 2.500 places for the readers.

At the time of their inscription in the “Bod”, the students of Oxford must lend oath not “to borrow” books or to destroy some by fire (sic).

Numerical developments

The services of library of the university of Oxford ( Oxford University Library Services , OULS) developed an ambitious policy of extension via the electronic networks, creating for example a Oxford DIGITAL Library (ODL, http://www.odl.ox.ac.uk/). It is about a long-term program, including the creation of a technical infrastructure complexes, to allow a distant access to the whole of the collections of the libraries of the university.

The Library bodléienne is obviously recipient of the whole of the project, without counting some specific developments which are clean for him.

The electronic library of Oxford started to become operational in July 2001, and offers a broad collection, of constant increase, numerical files.

The “Bod” in the fiction

The subtle architecture of the library in made a pleasant framework for the realizers of ciméma. It appears in particular in the Madness of the king George ( The Madness off King George ), film carried out by Nicholas Hytner, left in 1994, and in the first two films of the series Harry Potter, in which Divinity School is supposed being the infirmary of Poudlard while Duke Humphrey' S Library is supposed to represent the library of Poudlard.

External bonds

Official site of the Library bodléienne

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