Today's visit was to the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The group took a train from Paddington station to Oxford and then got on a tour bus for the city. We drove around for a while listening to the guided tour of the area, and got some history of the numerous colleges at Oxford. The group got off the tour outside of the original Bodleian Library. Once we arrived we were ushered in very quickly and split into to groups.
Our tour began in the large room at the center of the bottom floor of the library known as the Divinty School. The guide explained to us that this room was intially used as an examination room for students. However, the exams taken back then would have been drastically different from those we know today. Students were questioned for hours and asked to argue their case in front of an observer. This was all done in Latin, by the way. The ceiling of the hall was covered in carvings depicting religious scenes, crests, and other symbols.
The group was then taken to the room behind the Divinty School called the Convocation Room. This room, pictured above, is used as a cermonial meeting room. Alumni of the college meet here when a new president of the college is to be decided. Some students recieve diplomas in this room. This is usually reserved for recipients of honorary degrees.
The Bodleian Library itself is located atop the two rooms mentioned previously. The library was built in its current location in the beginning of the 17th Century. A library had existed prior to the Bodleian but it had been declining in recent years. Thomas Bodley decided to donate some of his personal collection and resources to restoring the library. He also encouraged others to donate to the library and expand it further. The library is now one of the six legal deposit libraries in the UK. The collection has around 8 million items at several locations around Oxford. One of these is the New Bodleian library located acrossed the street from the old.
I was intrigued by one point the guide made in particular, the libraries plans for digitizing the collection. He stated that it was the library's goal to completely digitize the entire collection. I thought this was interesting because most of the libraries we had visited previously had not enough employees or budget to complete such a task. The Bodleian Library is fortunate enough to have the Oxford Digital Library to help with the transfer. This group was established in order to digitize the collection and it recieves most of its funding from donors.
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