Talk:Bodleian Library

Library photo

Guys I have a much better photo of the library, and I am ready to give it away to Wikipedia. It already on Wikimedia Commons - I think it's much better than existing one Sigizmund 15:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Number of Legal Deposit libraries in the UK

There is a problem with the number of 'copyright' libraries in the UK. There are currently only five, since Trinity College Dublin is not in the UK. However, historically there were six at the time of the 1911 Copyright Act. Should the History section be changed to reflect this?

Update - I've edited the History section slightly but it may still need rewording.PurplePenny 00:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Copyright libraries are UK and Ireland, and if you check the Copyright Acts entries you will see the list is correct - there are currently 6. --gobears87 (talk) 15:10, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

'Bod card' photo

That isn't, strictly speaking, a Bod card. It is a University of Oxford card (a 'Blue Card' in library parlance); it does allow the holder to enter the Bodleian and its dependent libraries but is far more than just a library card. There is a Bodleian specific card (a 'Brown Card'), given to people who are not members of the university but are granted membership of the library. The two can be compared here: Radcliffe Science Library admissions guide . PurplePenny 00:03, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Membership of the University: a Clarification

I have a Brown Card. I am a member of the University. The Brown Card may be issued to persons who are not members of the University, but not everybody who has a Brown Card is a non-member. The above doesn't say, "given only to...", but most readers would probably make that inference, i.e. Blue Cards are for members; Brown Cards are for non-members. That is not the case.--Oxonian2006 22:39, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Declaration

I worked at Oxford for 3 years and I was a Bod reader but I was not required to make any declaration that I shall not steal or deface or burn books or whatever. Maybe that statement could be qualified a little?

I'd agree with that, I'm a current student, have been in the Bod several times and I've never had to promise not to burn books ... I guess they took that as a given!

I have altered this paragraph as recital of the declaration is certainly not compulsory anymore, although the ceremonies do still take place for those who wish to take them. The forms that one must complete in order to receive a Bod card contain the text of the declaration if I remember. Rje 15:00, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

yes. they certainly do - the declaration is tucked into the forms you have to sign when you start at Oxf. Same as agreeing to obey the university's rules and statutes and what have you. Claire —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.64.31 (talk) 16:53, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if this is policy, but when I went there as an American exchange student, they made it very clear that we (that is, myself and all the other American exchange students) would not be issued our Bod cards until we had each individually recited the declaration in the presence of the other students and several library officials, sighed the document, and had the document witnessed by by the officiating representative of the library. We were required to dress in formal attire, and the whole affair was conducted with conducted with complete seriousness and gravity. I had expected that since the whole ordeal was a routine formality (I had no idea that British students had the option of just signing the form) that it would be treated as such; but the impression I was left with was that I had just taken a sacred oath, and in return I was accepted into the Elect, and that any library that uses armed guards to ensure that only those deemed worthy (i.e. the students of one of the worlds oldest and most prestigious institutions of learning) might enter, and even then only after they had undergone a solemn and cryptic initiation, must contain truly arcane and mysterious knowledge. But really I think it was because we were Americans and they didn't trust us. For some reason we were also only allowed in the Bod after 2:00. Snowboardpunk (talk) 12:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Snowboardpunk, the oath, the ceremony and any restrictions have nothing to do with the fact you are American. And there are no armed guards at the Bodleian. Curious that someone told you that you could enter only after 2pm, there are no hourly restrictions on any readers, only dates. See this page for more information: http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/services/admissions/cards Cheers. --gobears87 (talk) 15:16, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

LDL Act

Lucian, can you please clarify what precisely you mean when you mention reference to Ireland Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000? From what I read at the agency website (reference 1) we should be saying UK and Ireland in the lead paragraph. CarterBar (talk) 18:06, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 is a UK Act of Parliament and it only claims Jurisdiction over UK and not Irish publications. The fact that this Act does indeed require that a copy of each Book is sent to Trinity College, Dublin does not mean that Irish Publications fall under the Act ie the legal deposit libraries only apply to UK Publications. Likewise, in the Republic of Ireland, the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 specifies that one copy of every book published is to be delivered to the British Library (not the Bodleian) as well as Trinity College Library, Dublin. However this act also requires books to be sent to the National Library of Ireland, the library of the University of Limerick, the library of Dublin City University, and the National University of Ireland. Thus there are additional legal deposit libraries in Ireland. Lucian Sunday (talk) 18:50, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, that's clear, but does the Bodleian receive a copy of all Irish publications anyway? CarterBar (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 19:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I have checked the Irish Act and it does include the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the University Library, Cambridge; the National Library of Scotland, and the National Library of Wales.Lucian Sunday (talk) 20:52, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Reading further, I can see that these dont have to be provided automatically, only when requested, but I would suspect from the Agency Website that they do have a system to get hold each book. Lucian Sunday (talk) 20:57, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Reversions by carterbar

Hi carterbar, you've reverted the older text to state In 1911, the Copyright Act continued the Stationers' agreement by making the Bodleian one of the six (at that time) libraries in the British Isles where a copy of each book copyrighted must be deposited. See: Legal deposit. The 1911 Copyright Act makes it clear that the act is for the United Kingdom. There is no legal entity called "British Isles". In addition, since the British Isles also covers the Isle of Man (with it's own legislative powers), are you suggesting that the act also legislated for publications there (and Jersey too). It's a common error in articles to equate British Isles = United Kingdom = Great Britain - but it *is* inaccurate, and my edits attempt to correct the article. --Bardcom (talk) 17:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the act you refer to is a UK Act, but one of the six libraries referred to is in a different part of the British Isles, namely Ireland. The library is at Trinity College, Dublin. I maintain that British Isles is an adequate description to cover the geographic area of the libraries in question. The issue with the Isle of Man is a complete red herring. You seem to be saying that unless usage of British Isles is all inclusive, covering each of the constituent countries, Channel Islands, IoM and elsewhere, then the usage is not valid. This cannot be correct. CarterBar (talk) 18:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

You're wrong. British Isles is not the same as United Kingdom as you seem to believe. This act covered the United Kingdom, and since Ireland was part of the United Kingdom at the time (act of union 1801), this is the term that should be used. If you want to use a more "modern" term, it's would also be OK to say "United Kingdom and Ireland". Using the term "British Isles" is not only wrong, it is inaccurate. It might be handy for your argument to dismiss the Isle of Man, but you can't wish it away (or Jersey for that matter), and that's the whole point of being accurate and an encyclopedia. This act did not cover those areas, only the United Kingdom. It records accurate information, not inaccurate opinion. The Bod was one of the libraries selected for deposits within The United Kingdom, not "British Isles". Justify your edit with a reference or a citation (as I've done - please read the Act from the link I provided) as required. Bardcom (talk) 19:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Bibliotheca Bodletana

I was poking around in Google Books or Google Scholar (not sure which... not relevant here) this evening, and ran across a work I had never seen before. In an attempt to ascertain which library had scanned it and made it available (as I was considering whether it would be worth a road trip), I went to the prefatory material to look for a library stamp. &c. On the title page of the work, there was an acquisition stamp which read Bibliotheca Bodletana. Initially, I read it incorrectly (as the stamp was blurry) and I wasn't sure what this meant. Upon further inspection, I realized it was an acquisition stamp for the Bodleian Library as I had visited the facility when I was a student at CLW in Aberystwyth. Not sure how often this might come up, but I did a Google search and got no hits on Bibliotheca Bodletana. Thought it might be worth mentioning somewhere in the Wikipedia article for those less familiar with the Bodleian (or Latin for that matter). (Was going to upload a JPG of the acquisition stamp, but I forgot my old Wiki account and had to create a new one... cause the login I normally use is "is use" by myself or somebody else. I'll try it again in a few days. --Symmerhill (a.k.a. Summerhilll) (talk) 06:16, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the reason you got no ghits for Bibliotheca Bodletana is that the name and stamp is Bibliotheca Bodleiana — it is an I not a T. If you can find a scanned edition with an unblurred stamp (try for eg the 1861 edition of Tylor's Anahuac: or, Mexico and the Mexicans, ancient and modern), the distinction between the letters is much more obvious.--cjllw ʘ TALK 00:02, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

11 Million Volumes

According to Oxford's University Library Website the University holds 11 million Volumes [[1]]

Corrected. --gobears87 (talk) 15:33, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

How the Bodlian is Different

Calling the Bodlian a "library", as if it were anything like real academic libraries is utterly laughable, and the article needs to clearly state the very different way in which it operates: (1) You can't "check out" books - which is almost the ONLY function of most libraries. (2) Unless the book you're seeking is one of the few actually shelved in the reading rooms, you have to request it to be sent to a particular reading room in advance. (3) You can't even ENTER any of the library buildings without the proper card. I am not aware of any other non-privately-owned library in the world with such a policy; even the Library of Congress allows everyone to enter and read. (4) To ensure compliance with (3), rather than simply have a card-scanner, the Bodleian instead pays a man to make SURE you don't enter unless you're up to snuff. And instead of just putting magnetic tags in their books, the Bodleian instead has the same man manually search you to ensure you aren't stealing books. Of course since most students will have a number of their own books with them, and since the search is necessarily brief, this seems both less effective and more expensive than simply tagging the books.

A real academic library tries to make it as easy as possible for students to have ready access to the books they need so that they can do research; the Bodlian seems to think that the books themselves are far more valuable than the education of the students who need to read them. Of the hundreds of books I read there, there was not one that I couldn't have found in the library of any moderately sized university, where I could have entered unchallenged, obtain the desired book despite not having requested it the day before, and then TAKEN THE BOOK HOME with me, where I could then cite and refer to it while writing an essay. I can understand such restrictions for rare or out-of-print books, but when the book in question could be replaced in a few days at minimal cost, why pretend they're priceless treasures that can only actually be read by arranging at least a day in advance to do so at a specific reading room, all of which are only open during limited periods on weekdays. The one time I actually needed an out of print book, they not only didn't have it, but they didn't have any of the other books that author had written. This particular case is the more ridiculous as the author in question was Charles Williams, who was a long-time editor at Oxford University Press and later a lecturer at the university. Snowboardpunk (talk) 11:31, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, which reminds me of one more thing that made no sense at Oxford: you could only check out books from your own college's library. While I realize that the colleges have a great deal of independance, they are united as the University. And yet they all attempt to be bibliographically self-sufficient, ensuring that every one of them has a copy of The Republic, but that anything not entirely mainstream will be largly absent from all of them; and even if New College DOES have that particular book a student at St. Peter's has been searching for, it does him absolutely no good. If they simply made all libraies open to all students, they'd vastly increase the resources available to all the students, and they would save money because they would need to buy fewer total books: there wouldn't have to be a copy of every western clasic in every library, since there would still be dozens of them in the system. And while each individual library might decide against a particular book, if they were united into one system, they might very well purchase one copy for the system as a whole, for while it might be unlikely that the book will be needed at any particular college, it might at the same time be probable that at least one person in the University will need it. Consider, as contrast, the Five Colleges; although they operate almost entirely independently of one another, they nevertheless realized the benefits of a shared library system. As a result, there is almost no book that can't be found somewhere in the system, and if it's at another library you can go there and pick it up, or have it sent to your own library, and also return it there when you're done. Additionally, rather than maintaining subscriptions to myriad different journals, the libraries all subscribe to a different set of them, and as a result each college spends less and the total number of journals students have access to is vastly greater. Having experienced both systems first hand, I have no doubts as to which system is superior. Snowboardpunk (talk) 12:01, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Obviously this is mostly POV, but I do think that the basic content of the first paragraph belongs in the article. Please excuse me for pontificating where it is not really appropriate, but once I started to write about the matter, I couldn't stop. I would have had all αα's there if so much of my time hadn't been consumed each week tracking down the dozen or so new books I needed for my tutorials.

• Hi Snowboardpunk, I've appended a sentence to the lead para saying "Though University members may borrow some books from dependent libraries (such as the Radcliffe Science Library), the Bodleian operates principally as a reference library and in general documents cannot be removed from the reading rooms." Do you think that's sufficient? Your college library point may be true but probably belongs in the main University article, as it might be one of the factors to consider when selecting a college. BTW if you mean this Charles Williams (1886–1945), then an OLIS search today returned 105 titles. Anyway, I hope those library frustrations didn't entirely prevent you from enjoying your time in the UK! - Pointillist (talk) 18:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC) + Now updated using EALacey's improved wording [thanks] - Pointillist (talk) 18:37, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you found Oxford libraries unhelpful for your research. The fact that the central Bodleian doesn't lend books wasn't previously made clear enough in the article, so thank you for pointing that out; the sentence added by Pointillist is good. Incidentally, your points (1)-(3) are also true of the British Library, although I'm not sure about their security arrangements (4). EALacey (talk) 18:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I am curious that user "Snowboardpunk" claims to have been a reader, and studied at the university, but cannot spell "Bodleian". Certainly a red flag. In any case, most of the comments (far too lengthy for the talk pages and belong elsewhere, i.e. a blog) refer to the library as "non-privately-owned" when, in fact, it is privately owned by the University. I would add that the system in place was set up mainly by Thomas Bodley, as you can read, in the very early 17th century, and has worked very well for centuries. The reference only aspect protects the collection much better than a lending library. If a scholar or reader does not wish to use this system they are welcome to study - or read - elsewhere. Though I believe you would find the British Library request and read system even more cumbersome. It too is called a "library" but does not lend books.

Thanks also to EALacey for updated sentence on borrowing. --gobears87 (talk) 15:29, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

URGENT format help needed

Came to update references/citations, found that the "edit" buttons have been moved (by insertion of photos??) into text and are hard to find and to use! This applies to sections below "Thomas Bodley..." and above "Present..."

Please can someone with Wiki formatting skills PLEASE fix this ASAP?! Thanks. --gobears87 (talk) 15:52, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Shikshapatri

"An original copy of the Shikshapatri that was given to Sir John Malcolm is kept in this library". Removed from text: if notable enough needs to be in relevant section.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 21:02, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Bodley

Who calls is Bodley? Its just "the bod"