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Trainee Introductions – Arts and Humanities

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Welcome to part three of our trainee introductions; this week it’s all about the humanities! Below, you’ll hear from five trainees, each one stationed at a library within the Humanities division at Oxford University: the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library; the Bodleian Old Library; the English Faculty Library; the History Faculty Library; and the Taylor Institution Library. So, without further ado, make yourself a hot drink and enjoy a gentle read about our respective libraries.

 

Emma Brand – Art, Archaeology, and Ancient World Library

Emma outside the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library

Hello! I am Emma, the trainee at the Art, Archaeology, and Ancient World Library (Art Library for short). Being under Section 3 also means that I get to do a few shifts a week at the Taylor Institution Library (and possibly the Nizami Ganjavi Library later this year). Each library has their quirks and I have been having a load of fun getting lost. In Art, that often means going round and round and round the rotunda until you think you are where you started… but maybe not. The Taylor is a magical place where rooms seem to appear. The best discovery so far has been the ‘secret door’ that leads from the ground floor women’s bathroom into the basement. I have also just moved over from Australia to start this traineeship, so, I am also on a crash course of learning English slang, tasting a variety of new sweets, and learning the art of layers – especially when it’s wet outside!

I have a BA from the University of Western Australia (UWA) in Art History and Media Communications. I had planned on starting a master’s in Conservation Practice at Cardiff University in 2020, however, due to the pandemic, I have been trying several different things these past few years. I have worked in marketing, at a local history museum and at a digitisation centre, and also completed an honour’s year in the History of Art. Feeling a bit lost at the end of last year, I found I was still wanting to go to the UK despite the master’s no longer being viable. So, at the start of this year, I began looking for roles that would combine my strengths and aspects of my various jobs that I enjoyed, whilst also developing new skills. For example, I knew that I enjoyed a mix of front facing and backend roles, database work, and also a healthy dose of digital communication. I had honestly not thought of working in a library but when I saw the traineeship, it ticked everything I was looking for! So far, it’s been a wonderful start and I am looking forward to the many months ahead.

 

Elena Brearley – Bodleian Old Library (Bodleian Reader Services)

Hello there, my name is Elena, also known as Len. I am the current Reader Services Trainee at the Bodleian Old Library.

Sunshine in the staff area of the Old Bodleian Upper Reading Room

I’ve pursued a variety of interests and had an assortment of jobs that have led me on the path towards being here in Oxford on the Graduate Traineeship. I started off studying Drama at The University of Manchester, during which time I became interested in the use of theatre and arts in community contexts. After graduating in 2020, my interest in community spaces drew me to apply for a job working as a Library Assistant with Stockport Public Libraries. I was in this role for three years, helping readers with all kinds of enquires, organising events and activities, and doing all those lovely jobs like shelving and straightening that ensure a library keeps running smoothly.  

Alongside my role in libraries, I worked as a freelance artist and creative facilitator, delivering arts and drama sessions in settings such as schools, theatres, libraries, prisons, and probation centres. My favourite of these experiences was spending one month living in Barrow-in-Furness working as an Artist-in-Residence where I ran writing, zine-making, and drama workshops with different community groups. Just before moving to Oxford I was working as a gardener, a bartender, and a wedding registrar.

 

I am new to working in academic libraries and am really enjoying being back in a university environment. Although my traineeship is based at the ‘Old Bod’, myself and Zac get to work across both the beautiful buildings that are the Bodleian Old Library and the Radcliffe Camera. A unique part of my traineeship is having the opportunity to work on the Main Enquiry Desk. Here, we deal with questions from across the world about The Bodleian’s collections and provide support for readers accessing library services and resources. For me, the best part of the job is the people I come across in all aspects of the work. I am looking forward to seeing how the rest of the year unfolds and what adventures are in store!

 

Harry Whattoff – English Faculty Library (EFL) 

Dear reader,

Thanks for tuning in! My name is Harry and I’m the Graduate Trainee at the English Faculty Library this year. I think I’ll start by mentioning that this will sadly be the final introductory post you read from an EFL trainee. Next summer, our library is due to make a long-awaited move into the Schwarzman Centre, a new Humanities building that is currently under construction. I went back in time on the trainee blog, and found references to this move in previous entries dating back to 2009 – it’s all very exciting!

My academic background, rather fittingly, lies in English Literature. I undertook both a BA and an MA in the subject, for the latter of which I examined queer rural representations in British literature and film. Upon graduating, I began teaching English at a school. Here, alongside my usual teaching responsibilities, I was able to interact with the school’s library which gave me a small insight into what it might be like to work in one. Following this position, I undertook a range of volunteering and work experience at various museums, archives, and libraries, all of which played their part in leading me to apply for the Bodleian Library Graduate Training Scheme.

At the EFL, my role is very varied (which I love). I handle all the incoming and outgoing deliveries to our offsite storage facility in Swindon, as well as the majority of the book processing for the library. In addition to this, most staff members will have a daily two-hour shift at the Enquiry Desk, and we are collectively responsible for scanning and email enquiries on a rotation basis. I particularly enjoy helping with the circulation of our rare books and special collections; in my first week someone requested a first edition of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist which was, predictably for an ex-English student, pretty mind-blowing. I’m currently working on a display for the second half of Michaelmas term; I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to get creative with our collections and consider what our readers might like to see!

I’ll leave it here for now, but I hope this small introduction has given you an insight into what I was up to before my traineeship, and a little about my day-to-day tasks at the EFL!

Until next time,

Harry 😊

 

Zac Draysey – History Faculty Library (HFL)

Hi, I’m Zac, the new trainee at the History Faculty Library (HFL) in the Radcliffe Camera. My own academic background isn’t in history, but in philosophy, and I finished an MPhil at Cambridge this summer, focusing mostly on ordinary language philosophy in Oxford after the second world war. Before I started here in September, my only experience with libraries has been as a reader, so it’s been an eye-opening experience to see things from the other side. The Bodleian central site libraries aren’t, of course, typical academic libraries, and I’ve been amazed by the complexity of the system here.

A misty day outside the Radcliffe Camera

We have a range of different shelf-marks in the Camera, both lending and reference collections, as well as shelves to house books brought in for readers from off-site storage. This maybe goes without saying, but it’s been a real joy to work in such a beautiful and historic building. The Camera feels very much like the focal point of the university, and especially it’s library system.

The Old Bod and the Camera are slowly becoming a more integrated system, with the teams from both libraries being joined together. This larger team is then being split into reader services and collections groups. I’ve been placed in the latter group, so I’ve been learning about how the HFL develops its collections to best suit the needs of students. It’s been really interesting to gain a greater insight into how reading lists inform purchases, the process of actually acquiring books, and also the classification of new books. Preparing new books for placing on the open shelves once they’ve been classified has been my favourite task so far.

 

 

Lindsey Evans – Taylor Institution Library

The Main Reading Room of the Taylor Institution Library

Hi, I’m Lindsey and I’m based at the Taylor Institution Library, whose collections cover Western and Eastern European Languages, as well as Linguistics, Film Studies and Women’s Studies. The historic, slightly maze-like, Taylor building is located at one end of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum (perk of the job: free entry to exhibitions!). It also houses lecture rooms for the university’s language courses. Once a week I walk to the other end of the Ashmolean to work at the lovely Art, Archaeology and Ancient World library as well. I feel lucky to be working in these unique places in the heart of the city and I’m really enjoying the opportunity to get to know more than one library team and library environment during my trainee year.

I applied for the Bodleian Library Graduate Training Scheme because I was keen to explore a second career in the library and information field. Prior to this, I was working in educational publishing as an editor of language-learning resources, so a move into libraries represents ‘switching sides’ from producing books and online materials to helping people access them. I have been curious about library work because I enjoy being able to combine the management of complex information with delivering a service. I’m also interested in doing work that involves handling physical items, as well as desk-based tasks, in a physical space with its own community. My experience of libraries up to now has been from the student/reader side and I hadn’t worked in a conventional library before. However, interestingly, I have volunteered in a ‘Library of Things’, lending out diverse useful items to the public – from hedge trimmers to camping equipment to disco balls!

So far, I’m finding my new job and the library field in general very varied and interesting, and I am really looking forward to deepening my understanding as the year goes on.

 

2024 Trainee Showcase: Part 2

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The second part of the 2023/24 Trainee Showcase comprised of presentations by Leah Brown (English Faculty Library), Sorrel Fenelon (St John’s College Library), and Erin Minogue (Bodleian Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library). The projects ranged from a deep-dive into the offprints owned by a renowned professor, work to widen access to special collections, and an investigation into how social media and digital outreach can work to highlight collections and engage audiences.

Leah Brown: A Sérprent Saga: Professor Turville-Petre and his Literary Network

By Clara Oxley

A set of four grey filing boxes. Each box has a white label with a woodprint bookplate which denotes it as part of the Turville-Petre collection.
Offprints from Turville-Petre’s collection in archive folders.

Leah’s trainee project was a fascinating deep dive into the offprints of Professor Turville-Petre, a prominent Oxford scholar in Old Norse-Icelandic Studies who, as a student at Christ Church, was tutored by none other than J. R. R. Tolkien himself. When Turville-Petre died in 1978, he donated his entire library to the English Faculty Library. This, along with the rest of the EFL, will be moved to the Schwartzman Building in 2025 (a fact which motivated this project to begin with).

For anyone unsure of what an offprint was, Leah began by helpfully describing it as a ‘printing of a single piece of work that is part of a larger body,’ such as an article from a periodical. On top of exploring his offprints, another aim of the project was to create a handlist of them and store the items carefully to ensure that they were protected and conserved. This was because the off-prints were originally stored in magazine files, something which might have sent any conservationist into a frenzy.

To reduce damage to the items and make the collection more accessible, Leah created a spreadsheet detailing each Turville-Petre offprint. These details included, but were not limited to, author details, publication information, as well as language. Leah also paid close attention to the contents and notes that he made in the margins of the off-prints, which gave a unique insight into the way his relationships with colleagues changed over the years; something Leah went on to explore in more depth. Once the helpful handlist was completed, Leah moved the offprints to conservation boxes, and a quiet sigh of relief was heard from the conservation community across the country.

Next, Leah’s deep-dive into the contents and contexts of the offprints proved to be effective in bringing Turville-Petre to life, letting us catch a glimpse of his personality and work style. By exploring the historical context, as well as his academic engagements, correspondences and notes, Leah painted an image of a man who was clearly very academically driven, yet also dedicated to and supportive of his colleagues. These colleagues included the first woman to be Professor of Old Norse at the University of Oslo, Professor Anne Holtsmark, with whom he remained in correspondence for over 30 years. Furthermore, Leah’s inclusion of items in which he conveyed personality beyond the academic rigour of his work really helped humanise this great scholar. We particularly liked his artistic endeavours, such as the doodle of a Viking in his lecture notes. It’s always reassuring to learn that even the brightest can lose focus from time to time!

From Leah’s presentation, we learnt about a truly fascinating man who dedicated his life to Norse studies. So much so, that the Prime Minister of Iceland award him with the Grand Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Falcon.

A touching addition to the presentation was the inclusion of correspondences Leah had had with those who remembered Turville-Petre with fondness and respect. This included a former pupil of his, who recalled how, ‘Gabriel was, in his own way, as much of a teacher as a scholar and researcher, and a devoted teacher at that.’

Before completing her traineeship, Leah informed us that she will be creating box level records for the new offprint boxes, making the items accessible for all and ensuring that Turville-Petre and his legacy is kept alive for future scholarly endeavours.

Sorrel Fenelon: Widening Access to Special Collections at St John’s College

By Connie Hubbard

You might think that St John’s College, who have a special collection of manuscripts, would be overly protective of their collection. Sorrel, however, made increasing access and interest in early manuscripts her goal. Not an easy task.

To prepare, Sorrel shadowed school tours run by the Public Engagement team at the Weston Library, learning and magpieing tour-guiding techniques. She then began planning a tour for sixth form students visiting St John’s College as part of the Inspire programme. This initiative is a free, two year course for pupils from non-selective state schools, which includes a research presentation day onsite at St John’s. As part of this day, Sorrel planned a special collections visit, complete with a tour of the old library, and a session getting up close to an array of rare works. Sorrel had a brainwave while planning the event and, before the students arrived, she asked each what interested them and created the exhibition based on their answers. Talk about customer service!

On the big day, eighteen eager pupils got to see and interact with six items, including: a letter written by Jane Austen; Peter Apianus’ Astronomicum Caesareum* illustrated with a beautiful dragon, and an 18th-century autograph book which also housed a tapeworm – gross, but when entertaining teenagers, disgust is usually a safe bet. The chosen items highlighted the breadth of St John’s Special Collections with works from a range of time periods and in a range of languages, with different quirks.

This image shows a powerpoint presentation opened on a screen. The text of the presentation reads Widening Access to Special Collections at St John's College. On the left of the screen there is an a image of some bookshelves with early printed books, with brown covers. On the far left of the image, a woman can be seen standing behind a lecturn presenting.
Sorrel presenting her trainee project on Widening Access to Special Collections at St John’s College.

As with any ambitious project, Sorrel experienced complications. The most notable being that a condition check of the items revealed the Astronicum Caesureum would have been too fragile to move across college to the room booked for the event. Luckily Sorrel had been unreasonably organised and had a backup; a stunningly illustrated atlas. Crisis averted!

During Sorrel’s showcase presentation, she shared with us, not only her positive feedback from the College Access team and the students themselves, but suggested improvements, for example: to include more STEM subject manuscripts (though she noted the Astronomicum, gone AWOL, would have remedied this somewhat).

If that weren’t enough, Sorrel has also been working on a database of the John Rose letters, picking up where a previous trainee left off.

*an instrument for predicting the occurrence of solar and lunar eclipses.

Erin Minogue: Developing a social media presence for the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library

By Xanthe Malcolm

Wrapping up the morning session, Erin told us all about the process of establishing an X (formerly known as Twitter) account for the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library.

Erin began her presentation with a discussion of how she had chosen her project – which translated neatly into some tips for those trainees from next year’s cohort who were in the audience. For example, she knew from the start that she wanted something with a tangible outcome, which would be useful to the library, and have potential for continuity in the future. Marrying all that with her personal interest in outreach and increasing access to the library’s collections led her to the decision to develop a social media account.

Walking us through the timeline of her project, Erin started with her research into existing library social media accounts. This helped her to develop her initial thoughts on the aims of creating this account: who the target audience would be; what sort of content would meet the needs of the diverse groups within that target audience – from current readers to prospective students, and the local community to a broader audience who might have an interest in the library’s collections; and which platform to choose.

A screenshot of the Bodleian Art Library's new X profile. The header of the image shows the stone exterior of the library, which features brown wooden double doors and columns on either side. The profile picture is a small circle in navy blue with the words Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library next to an illustration of a column. The profile text reads All things Classics, Egyptology & Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Archaeology, and History of Art & Architecture. Part of @bodleianlibs
A screenshot of the Bodleian Art Library’s new X profile.

Having established the purpose of the account, Erin then made formal proposals to her own library and the central Communications team for the Bodleian. She also began work on branding for the account. We heard about how she had decided on a colour scheme that would be cohesive with the central Bodleian X account and her library’s blog, as well as the importance of finding high resolution images and the difficulties of fitting the words “Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library” into a profile picture!

All Erin’s hard work paid off on launch day. With some carefully crafted initial posts and a takeover of the central Bodleian X account to harness the power of their huge pool of followers, she was able to surpass her target of 100 followers by the end of the first day.

Since then, the account has gone from strength to strength. Erin gave examples of how she ensures she continues to meet the account’s aims of highlighting the collections, providing reader service updates, improving the accessibility of the building and engaging with readers and visitors (for example, by linking posts to exhibitions at the Ashmolean). She also talked us through how she has planned to ensure the continuity of the account after the end of the year.

Erin rounded off her presentation by talking us through some of her personal highlights from the year – a fantastic reminder of the wide range of opportunities open to trainees who are keen to get involved.

And if you haven’t done so yet, go and follow @BodArtLib on X!

 

LGBTQ+ History Month at the Bodleian Law Library

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British LGBTQ+ history has an involved and often traumatic relationship to the Law. At the Bodleian Law Library (BLL), we’ve taken the opportunity to highlight some of those relationships through a display of our primary and secondary collections. In this post, we want to briefly touch on just a few pieces of legislation, currently on display or accessible on open shelf in the BLL, that were vital to the progression of LGBTQ+ rights in the UK, showing how the Law Library can be a key resource for studying its history.

Three books on display against the background of a rainbow flag
Physical copies of the Wolfenden Report, a Homosexual Law Reform Society annual report, and Peter Wildeblood’s memoir.

In 1954, Peter Wildeblood, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu and Michael Pitt-Rivers were convicted for “consensual homosexual offences” and sentenced to 12 to 18 months in prison. The trial invigorated a reform movement that triggered a Commons “committee on homosexual offences” that, in 1957, would publish the seminal Wolfenden Report, which advised that “‘Homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private be no longer a criminal offence”. The report was debated in parliament, but the government did not act on its recommendations, galvanising new organisations agitating for gay rights, such as the Homosexual Law Reform Society (a 1960s report of the Society is on display in the Law Library). Also in the Law Library, you can read the Wolfenden Report itself, as well as Wildeblood’s brave memoir Against the Law, which appeared in the same year.

Picture of a book display showing various primary and secondary resources related to LGBTQ+ history
Part of the LGBTQ+ History Month display at the Bodleian Law Library.

The library-held collections of historical and in-force statutes (such as Halsbury’s or online legal databases like Westlaw or Lexis+ subscribed to by the Bodleian – see the list of legal databases at Legal databases | Bodleian Libraries (ox.ac.uk); not quite as up to date but freely accessible to everyone is the government’s own Legislation.gov.uk) are a key source of LGBTQ+ history. In 1967, ten year after the recommendations in the Wolfenden report, the Sexual Offences Act finally decriminalised in-private sex between men over 21 (i.e. only a partial decriminalisation: the age of consent, moreover, was not equalised until 2000). Another key statute is the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which finally gave Trans people the legal right to full recognition of their gender (we also hold the 2018 parliamentary consultation material regarding its reform). And there is the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act of 2013, which legalised gay marriage, or the 2010 Equality Act, Britain’s key anti-discrimination legislation. All these laws have a direct impact on people’s daily lives and experiences, as well as our sense of what kind of society we are and/or want to be.

The BLL does not only hold the final product when it comes to legislation. In the Official Papers collection, the often fascinating (and not rarely disturbing) parliamentary history of LGBTQ+ – related legislation can be followed, for instance through the debate reports printed in Hansard (also online at https://hansard.parliament.uk/). From the first discussion of Lesbianism in parliament in 1921 (a Criminal Law Amendment bill, which would have criminalised all sex between women, was defeated in the House of Lords that year) to the long history of the repeal of the repressive section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 (which prohibited the so-called “promotion” of homosexuality by local authorities, inspiring the activism of Stonewall and OutRage!), readers can discover how House discussions and committee reports reflected (or not) debates, prejudices, advocacy and reform in wider society. Behind the glass of the main reading room, for instance, three volumes on display chart the repeal of section 28: from the 1988 introduction of the paragraph which offensively termed gay partnerships “pretended family relationships” into the 1986 Local Government Act, over the introduction of repeal in the Standing Committee stage of the 2003 Local Government Bill, to the eventual enactment of repeal in the Local Government Act 2003 (a government apology, however, did not follow until 2009).

Two statute books and a parliamentary committee report on display, resting on bookstands.
Tracing the repeal of Section 28 at the BLL

If you want to know more, a good first place to start is the Oxford LibGuide prepared by the Law Library: Home – LGBTI law – Oxford LibGuides at Oxford University. The secondary literature on display until the end of this month in the main reading room, moreover, highlights not only titles about the UK, but also the US, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. On the first floor of the library, in addition, there are extensive collections of statutes from Australia, Canada, India, and many other jurisdictions: on the first of February, for instance, we displayed the Canadian Civil Marriage Act, which legalised same-sex marriage in the country on that day in 2005 (on the same day in 2009, incidentally, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir became the prime minister of Iceland, and with it the world’s first openly gay head of government).

There are many more legal resources accessible through the library, either in physical form (such as reports on the trial of Oscar Wilde, notoriously convicted under the infamous Labouchère Amendment of the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act, at KB65.ENG.WIL on the second floor), or in electronic form. As such, the library constitutes an excellent resource in remembering and making visible LGBTQ+ history, the constraints and repressions that the Law has inflicted, and the trajectory of its reform and the construction of anti-discrimination legislation.

 

A Visit to the Collection Storage Facility

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Picture of a long aisle of high warehouse shelving filled with cardboard trays of books
Looking down an aisle at the CSF

In South Marston, just on the edge of Swindon, there’s an unremarkable-looking, medium-sized warehouse that contains a sizeable chunk of the world’s knowledge. Unlikely location as it might seem to those imagining the Bodleian and other famous libraries as crenelated holdfasts of forgotten tomes, it is in fact here, among the prefab walls and steel girders, that most of its collections are housed. The Book Storage Facility – soon to make good its new name as the Collection Storage Facility (CSF) – has for twelve years now been keeping safe more than 10 million titles, together with maps and other miscellaneous objects, on more than 150 miles of shelving. 30-ish aisles of more than 10 metres high filled with books ordered by size alone (!) are navigated by large picker-like assist vehicles that echo hollowly in the cavernous space. Despite the seemingly random placement, any book can be procured within a minute: if you order up your CSF materials in any Bodleian library by 10.30 am, you are guaranteed they will be available the same afternoon. At the same time, the CSF team works through an enormous mass of scan requests, often more than a hundred a day (more than a 1000 in the first week of Covid!). It was at this massive information management operation that we trainees got a look last week, and boy, were we impressed.

Photo of multiple bays of high warehouse shelving stacks filled with books
The high reaches of knowledge

 

There was a time, as our wonderful CSF guide told us, when Bodleian book transit meant a horse-drawn dray going between different Oxford locations, the horse reportedly refusing to pass by the King’s Arms pub without a drink (one might think the driver had something to do with this, though). Today, vans go out twice daily from the CSF, where storage is optimised for efficiency. Books are sized (from A to E), sorted and packed onto short acid-free cardboard trays (assembled on site) in the large workroom. Then, they’re shelved several rows thick in the 70-metre long aisles of one of the four temperature- and humidity-controlled storage rooms (outfitted – for obvious reasons – with a massive sprinkler system: wet books, as we learned, can be repaired – charred books can’t). Because all items and trays are barcoded, the electronic request system is able to immediately show staff the most efficient way to fetch any item. It is people, though, who have had to input all these books onto that system: when the facility opened in 2010 (at a cost of more than 20 million pounds), 7.5 million items had to be ‘ingested’ into the facility in one go. These had been gathered together from previous storage locations, including the ‘New Bodleian’ (Weston) library and Gladstone Link, the former Nuneham Courtenay storage facility, and even deep storage in Cheshire salt mines! As a continuation of this mammoth operation (which took a mere 15 months!), two days a week new material still arrives from the Special Collections and Legal Deposit teams: indeed, once again, and in what is a stable motif in the history of the Bodleian, space is becoming a precious commodity, especially for the largest-size material! The planned new storage chambers will surely be very welcome.

Picture of temporary storage caddy filled with trays of books
Newly ingested or audited material being readied for storage

 

The CSF, it should be stressed, does not just contain academic books: its materials are as varied as you could imagine. There’s university paperwork. There’s Mills and Boon. There are boxes of free toys that came with magazines.  There are up to 2 million maps stored across multiple floors filled with planchests, some of which we got to have a look at (the relief map of Britain was a firm favourite!). There is archive material. There are busts. There are death masks. And all this mass of material is managed fulltime by only 23 people: that is, as our guide pointed out, almost half a million books per person. If that is not impressive, I’m not sure what is.

We all loved it. This visit was a privilege, and a joy, not least because of the warm welcome we received (thanks to the CSF staff!). Looking down from a platform over a vista of high shelving, a picker bleeping unseen in a distant aisle, and, when the door opens, a flash of Iggy Pop playing in the background, it’s actually a rather emotional sight: here they are, all of these books that writers poured their heart and time into, being kept safe for the future, in a warehouse in Swindon.

 

Happy Halloween (or autumn) from the Oxford Library trainees!

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Whether you celebrate Halloween or not, it is hard to deny that autumn is an atmospheric, spooky

Radcliffe camera with a sunset illuminating its top half and shadow on the bottom. Blue cloudy sky behind.
Photo of the Radcliffe Camera at sunset.

time to be in Oxford. Walking around the city in October, the trees are turning auburn, the mist is setting in, and, as the clocks change, the orangey streetlamps lamps are illuminated earlier and earlier. The night sky turns a deep royal blue. The clamour of ghost tours resonates around Radcliffe Square, reminding readers in the Old Bodleian of the city’s ghastly and rather gory history.

To honour this, I thought that there was no better time to explore some of the more ghoulish stories from the history of the Bodleian (and Oxford College) Libraries. For a Library which can trace its history back to 1320, you can imagine that these stories are plentiful. Through periods of history such as the town vs gown riots, which saw a Brasenose student killed by a local murderous mob, Radcliffe square has a hidden gruesome history. Thanks to Old Bodleian trainee Nia Everett, I have been informed about an even more prolifically gory historical function of this beautiful square: the Old Bodleian Anatomy school.

Founded in 1617, the Old Bodleian Anatomy school was active in this location for over 60 years, with frequent dissections occurring to instruct students on all aspects of physical human anatomy, including the slimy bits! For a current student or librarian, only allowed to take liquids into the library if contained in a keep-cup or sealable bottle, such activities are impossible to imagine taking place within the walls of the current Bodleian. However, to 17th century readers in anatomy, this study formed a crucial part of their daily scholarly practice. Such readers were able to demand the body of anyone executed within 21 miles of Oxford for use in their dissections and examinations.

A particularly oddly-spooky story from the Anatomy school is the tale of Anne Green’s

Early modern woodcut reading 'behold god's providence' with an image of anne green being hung and her resurrected from her coffin.
Image of Anne Green’s hanging

resurrection at the hands of William Petty, the Reader in Anatomy at the time of her execution. Anne was hung in Oxford castle yard, accused of committing infanticide. On a cold December night, awaiting to be dissected on the operating table, Anne Green was resurrected by Petty and his colleagues after they detected a faint pulse. Though she was brought back to life, her story ends with arguably another early modern horror: being married off to a man.

 

Turning away from horrors carried out within the Bodleian building, and towards its collections, there are plenty of spooky, magical, occult and alchemical manuscripts within the Bodleian’s special collections. For example, the Ripley Scroll, almost 6 metres long, as illustrated in this excellent TikTok from the Bodleian libraries: The Ripley Scroll. This manuscript instructs the reader how to create the philosophers stone- an item which Harry Potter readers will know can grant immortality. Additionally, many grimoires used by medieval priests to exorcise demons still remain within the Bodleian’s collections, such as this manuscript whose facsimiles are hosted on Digital Bodleian: MS. Rawl. D. 252.

To finish, I would ask you to consider the history all around you. Students at many Oxford Libraries can look up and see hundreds of years of architecture and artistry. College libraries can be over four hundred years old (Corpus Christi), or can be moved to cloisters (Brasenose) or be so grand, like my library at All Souls, that there are metres and metres of intricate cornices, shelving and windows to gaze up into. At the time of Halloween, All Souls requiems and frosty mornings, the vale between the present and the past becomes ever thinner, and the weight of history ever heavier.