All Souls College Library is mainly devoted to law and history. The Library is for the use of Fellows of the College but it is also open to graduates and undergraduates of Oxford University reading law, history and other disciplines, as well as to bona fide researchers. The collections are rich in pre-1800 printed sources and there is a large collection of manuscripts dating from the 13th to the 19th centuries as well as the complete archives of the College.
Hello! I’m Lizzie and I am the new Graduate Trainee for All Souls College Library. I spend much of my time in the beautiful eighteenth-century Great Library, doing admin in the library office, reshelving in the stacks or haunting the cellars (where books are also kept).
All Souls Library from North Quadrangle. The sundial is attributed to Sir Christopher Wren, who was a fellow of the college.
My background is in English Literature, completing an MA in English Literary Studies at Durham a few years ago. After graduating, I knew wanted a career working with books. Before my traineeship, I worked in academic publishing – which crosses over a little with librarianship – and so I have had some prior experience dealing with books and databases. I heard about the traineeship through an academic librarian, but I was unsuccessful in my applications before COVID-19 hit and stopped everything, including libraries. I knew librarianship was something I wanted to pursue further so I worked remotely on a project for a college library in Cambridge to gain some more experience and applied again – and I was successful!
The library experience at All Souls is unique and diverse. Unlike other college libraries, All Souls does not have any students; instead, the library has a ‘three-way’ aspect: supporting the college’s fellows, welcoming readers from across the university, and working with international researchers. The library has been closed over the summer, so I have yet to see a Reader, but no day has been the same. During September, the library has hosted several big university events, such as Encaenia and the prize fellowship examinations.
All Souls can appear mysterious from the outside – and there are many tourists often peering in through the gates on Radcliffe Square eager to get a glimpse of Oxford’s ‘most exclusive’ college — however, All Souls College Library is open to any member of the University (as well as outside students and researchers) to apply to become a Reader, so long as you have a research need. The library has a speciality in European, Military and Naval History and Law; it is also home to many treasures of early printed books and substantial archives, as well as a significant collection of drawings by Christopher Wren. You can see more of the library’s collection which has been digitalized on the library website.
My traineeship promises to be an interesting year; I am looking forward to discovering more about All Souls and its library.
Hi everyone! I’m Holly, and I am the graduate trainee at All Souls College, in the Codrington Library. It was whilst studying for a Master’s in English Literature at Newcastle University, where I worked closely with early printed materials, that I became inspired to pursue a career in librarianship (once you start learning about how to care for and handle books you never look at one in the same way again, which I find to be both a blessing and a curse)… So, after graduating I sought to develop my customer service skills within an information-based environment by working in a public library, a Cathedral library, and as a museum guide and a tourist information officer (amongst many other things)! Even a month on, I still cannot quite believe how fortunate I am to be situated in such a beautiful library and city, and I fully intend to make the most of the experience.
I’ll begin with a brief-ish introduction to All Souls College, as it has a fascinating history that is well worth knowing. The college was founded in 1438 by Henry Chichele, the Archbishop of Canterbury, along with Henry VI as its co-founder, and was initially built as a war memorial for those who died in the battlefield at Agincourt, where Henry VI’s father, Henry V, broke the laws of chivalry and massacred his prisoners of war. Hence, it became ‘the college of All Souls of the faithful departed’, where fellows celebrated divine service for those lost to the war. In fact, one of the most memorable parts of the college has to be the chapel, with its incredible reredos and ornate chapel screen.
(All photographs used in this blog are courtesy of All Souls College)
Its other purpose was to serve as a place of advanced study, with fellows primarily studying or teaching theology, law and medicine, and what really distinguishes All Souls from other Oxford colleges is that, apart from a few exceptions, we have never taken in our own undergraduates. I have been informed that this is in keeping with medieval practice, when fellows lived in college and students would go to them for teaching. Eventually, colleges realised that they could charge students to live on site which many began to do, yet All Souls maintained the medieval custom (can’t say I blame them).
Now on to the library… stepping out into the Great Quadrangle is a sight that one cannot easily forget, with the Radcliffe Camera peering over on the left, the immense two towers to the right, and the long library – the longest library in Europe – and its stunning sundial straight ahead. I will always remember the first time I stood in front of the library as I was walking with the librarian to my interview, trying to act cool and as though I was totally used to seeing such spectacular architecture – no biggie- and to not just stand there paralysed, with my mouth open in utter awe.
The building of the Great Library began in 1716, to a plan by Nicholas Hawksmoor, and was finished in 1751, and we now have around 185,000 volumes. We are a reference only library, though fellows are allowed to borrow, and I must admit, I do feel privileged to be one of the select few who holds a key to access the books! Our strengths are in law and history, and we have our own law reading room, the Anson Room. Knowing very little about law and being slightly (okay, very) intimidated by the sheer number of law reports and journals in there, I did treat it rather like the third floor corridor in Harry Potter and avoided it for a while, but I’d say I’m more than confident with where everything is now.
Hoping that this winter will bring snow so I can re-create this image…
This is the first ‘official’ week of term, which is exciting, although I must say I was glad to have the first month to get over the initial shock of merely working in such a magnificent library, and to ensure that when readers came in, I wasn’t wandering around looking like a lost little lamb. The pace has definitely picked up a lot (and our working hours have increased), but I am enjoying facing new challenges and taking on different jobs each day. My main roles, to list but a few, are inducting and assisting new readers, locating and delivering books to them, managing our journals collections and generally being the first point of call in the library office. I love it when I am able to help someone with an enquiry, and it is a genuine pleasure to witness readers fully appreciating and using the library.
The winding (and very creaky) spiral staircase in our office
All Souls does seem to hold a sort of enigmatic presence within Oxford, and a common assumption seems to be that we are entirely closed to readers– this is definitely not the case, and we are a very welcoming – albeit ‘unique’ – bunch here! (We also have excellent taste in biscuits). That being said, I do enjoy walking past the giant black and gold gates on Catte Street and listening in on the absolute rubbish that tour guides tell tourists about us – for example, that we are a college for retired fellows, or that we do not allow in women. I really have no clue as to where they get this information from!
The Great Library
I cannot wait to see what the rest of the year brings us all, and though I could quite happily keep writing, I must get back to work as someone has very kindly left a huge pile of books for me to shelve…
Our training afternoons are scheduled in line with the eight-week terms of Oxford, the names of which can bemuse newcomers to the university, though now, at the end of Trinity Term, I think that I have assimilated it. Since the last update in February, there have been many more training courses, including lots of library visits—everyone likes a library visit.
First, though, there were several talks by people working elsewhere in the Bodleian and even in other sectors, such as the session on the book trade, where we heard from people who work at Blackwell’s and the antiquarian dealer Quaritch. This was an interesting look into a different, though related, area of work. Talks by those who worked at Osney in the Collections and Resource Description department, which is a central Bodleian Libraries department, were also very interesting. This covered areas such as the processes of acquisitions (ordering, processing, and all the many and diverse tasks attached, on behalf of the main Bodleian and several smaller libraries), electronic resources (the only element of the Bodleian that is completely centralised), legal deposit operations (including developments in electronic legal deposit), resource description and open access. Much of the information here was on things that I already knew about tangentially through my work at the Law Library, or explanations of mysterious processes that I know of but didn’t know the background of. It made me feel part of the community, however, being able to nod wisely at the mention of Swets’ demise or the fact that legal deposit books beginning with ‘M’ are catalogued at Osney as part of the Shared Cataloguing Programme run by the British library.
Blackwell’s bookshop, where much of my trainee wages have been spent this year.
In Trinity Term we have also had talks from subject librarians on the role of subject consultant, and talks by the Head of Assessment and the Head of Heritage Science for the Bodleian Libraries. We learnt that a liaison librarian, a reference librarian and a research support librarian may be a similar job to a subject consultant, but that by the same token, a subject librarian’s role is very particular to their institution and their department. The various responsibilities were covered, from those to do with the subject collection and library management duties, to reader services, library projects and outreach and conferences. We then had an exercise on handling budgets, which saw my team – in charge of the slightly larger budget for science – overspend by £14,000. Before any future employers bury their heads in their hands, I’d like to point out that the game was rigged! It was pre-ordained that science’s budget would be the one greatest hit by expensive e-journal packages and VAT increases, no matter how conservative we were with our money initially. We definitely kept our readers happy with lots of resources though, even though the central finance department probably wouldn’t be best pleased. In the later set of talks, Frankie Wilson, Head of Assessment, told us all about how to gain meaningful feedback on library services, while David Howell showed us round his bespoke lab in the Weston Library in order to tell us a bit about the role of science in uncovering library treasures, a unique aid to research and one that hit the headlines when David’s hyperspectrometry revealed an ancient Mexican codex palimpsest.
Then there were the library visits. First, to the digital archives and then to All Souls’ Codrington Library, which was a striking contrast between the old and the new: the latest in digital archiving systems at the Bodleian Electronic Archives and Manuscripts department and the long tradition in All Souls’ Codrington Library, founded in the fifteenth century. At BEAM, we learnt that a hard drive has roughly half the lifetime of a cassette tape, and digital archiving seeks to preserve many types of slowly obsolescing technologies. The challenge of collecting and storing data from diverse electronic mediums, including floppy disks, CDs and flash drives, is considerable, and we learnt about the various strategies that are in place for each of them. There is also the task of archiving the web, and the Bodleian has several areas of interest that are regularly crawled and archived, a process that is also not without its challenges. By contrast, at the Codrington, the weight of centuries lingers in the air. The beautiful hall and the wonderful librarians’ office (with its spiral staircase and wall-to-wall books, it’s every bookworm’s dream) have a history all of their own, and we had a talk from the librarian, Gaye, on both the library and some of its collections. We heard about our fellow trainee and her role in the small library team, and had the chance to ask some questions.
The main hall of Codrington Library.
Next there was the Alexander Library of Ornithology, the Sherardian Library and the Radcliffe Science Library, which were fascinating, despite not having a single science degree among us. In the Sherardian, we heard about the Herbarium, where pressed plants that act as authority records for plant types, and are accompanied by the print collections which are used alongside the library of plants in order to support current and historical research in botany. We saw a first edition of Charles Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’, and William Dampier’s account of his circumnavigations of the globe which brought a wealth of knowledge back to Britain (as well as being the inspiration for books such as R.L. Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island’), and we also learnt about figures such as Sherard, Druce, and Fielding, important for the Oxford collections. At the RSL, after a quick tour, the pièce de résistance was clearly the 3-D printer. Having been sceptical about when I first saw it on the itinerary, I went away understanding how such technology services fit into the RSL’s ethos and enthusiastic about what we’d be shown. By offering access to such technology early on, as they did with e-book readers and will be doing with virtual reality hardware, the RSL is able to grant students and researchers access to technology that would be hard to find elsewhere, and facilitate learning through their services—in other words, exactly what a library is there for.
A page from the Flora Graeca at the Sherardian Library, digitally available.More recently, in Trinity Term, we have branched out from academia and visited Summertown Public Library and the Cairns Library at John Radcliffe Hospital. Both gave us insights into these areas of librarianship, public and medical, which bring different daily tasks, rewards, and challenges. In particular, I was impressed by Summertown library’s collaboration with the local council, where council workers and careers advisors came to meet people in drop-in sessions to get involved in two-way training with library staff, meaning that access to computers and internet – needed for everything from job applications to housing and benefit forms – could be coupled with some of the necessary context from professionals. It just goes to show how essential libraries can be. Meanwhile, at the Cairns library, a particular added feature of medical librarianship that I enjoyed hearing about was the literature searches conducted by the librarians—yes, for free—on behalf of the doctors.
Finally, there were a few extra courses that I went on, Advanced Searching: overview of Google and alternative search tools, Annual Review Training for Reviewees, and Practical Skills: minute taking. These were all relevant for my work in the Law Library, and in particular the course on advanced searching with Google, run by Karen Blakeman, was very interesting and has affected the way that I search online. The final run of training in Trinity Term will mark the end of our afternoon sessions, and it will culminate in the Trainee Showcase, where we give presentations on the projects that we have undertaken throughout the year.
In my second term at the Codrington Library what is most striking is how the space metamorphoses in the transition from term to vacation and back again. My re-acquaintance with the library, whilst no less bedazzling, has been considerably less terrifying than our first introduction in September. In coming back to my desk on the 5th of January, which despite its unusual lack of clutter was still very evidently my own, I was able to discern that it was unusually peaceful. In the dark winter evenings, particularly after the students scurried away for the holidays, the space was eerily, wonderfully quiet. This carried through to January but changed suddenly. A month into Hilary term, now that the students have awakened from their winter slumber, the library feels undeniably different and has regained its Codrington “bustle”.
The little-known open-door policy towards external admissions and the nature of All Souls means that the Codrington largely attracts a very specific type. Insofar as my day is concerned, the private researchers are most noticeable. Their usual interest in early printed material requires the attention of the more senior librarians and thus accords to me the responsibility of acting as frontman for other readers. The fellows, largely self-sufficient, are, to my great surprise, often the most invisible. Thus, it would seem that the presence, or absence, of students stands out most. In here at least, the majority (undergraduate and postgraduate alike) are quiet and fastidious, steadfast water drinkers, and surprisingly choosy about the books they request. The resonant space discourages idle chatter making me, more often than I wish to admit, the loudest entity walking up and down with heavy feet and opening the mockingly shrill bookcases. Yet, in their silent study, they shape the space and my workday.
Musings aside, what has changed? The longer opening hours in term (9.30-6.30) are more productive and more draining than the 9.30-4.30 day in vacation, but the changes, I think, largely pertain to the way that the day is structured. This stems, I think, from the way that the Codrington functions: in large part through the work of very small team, only three of which are full-time employees. In the vacation period we are more able to work together because there are fewer queries to attend to. The workday, in this sense, has the potential for structure. Personally, I had time for book moves in the stacks, looking into postgraduate programmes, reading up on areas of librarianship that interest me, sitting in and paying close attention to the work of my colleagues so that I might learn from observation, and starting my graduate trainee project (hours and hours of looking at manuscript viewers online!).
In term, however, the “division of labour” becomes more evident with each of us taking up more distinct responsibilities based on competence and seniority. The office is public and central to the layout of the library. All tasks are done from this one base, and thus we are always open to interruption. Consequently, during term-time, the “day in the life” of this library’s trainee, the Codrington’s version 9.0., is largely arbitrary, determined almost entirely by what comes through the office door. My “do or die” daily job list is quite short – updating an excel spreadsheet of books fellows have borrowed, processing post and incoming journals and doing the same in the afternoon, more or less keeping up with re-shelving and helping close down the library in the evenings. I have a variety of background tasks and projects as well, including processing acquisitions and presentations, research for the graduate trainee project and making shelf labels for the great library, but for the most part, after the morning tasks, the rest of the day is filled with reader requests.
So far, I have found this traineeship to be, in large part, an exercise of observation. It is very fascinating, however, to work in a library wherein the readers, however quiet and invisible, still have such a tangible effect on the space and workday. The transformation of the library is equally evident as the day progresses. As lunch approaches, we are less able to keep to a single task for very long (they—the students—have clearly awoken) and this often lasts until mid-late afternoon. This piece, for example, was started early but soon became, truly, a “day in the life” blog post. My desk is the first one walking into the office, so I interrupt my task if someone approaches to request a book or sign up as a new reader. There is definitely more shelving as well! That said, finding the confidence to slam bookcases open/closed when the majority of the great library is filled with diligent students is part of another skillset altogether, one I am yet to acquire, so now that I can do that in the relative cover of darkness I should scurry off as well.
Work to do, places to be, people to see, shelves to slam.
One of the keys to the closed bookshelves. Published with the kind permission of the Warden and Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford
Hello hello, I’m Michelle (or the “new Gabrielle”) and I’m the most recent graduate trainee at All Souls’ Codrington Library.
Despite the enormous, weathered (absolutely amazing!) key I’ve been given –>, I still find myself completely spellbound by this beautiful building and feeling more like a tourist than a staff member. In truth, I’ve found myself here to my complete surprise; being a librarian has always sounded like one of those wonderful fantasy jobs nobody ever gets. Happily proven wrong, I have, for now, two daily jobs to call my own – processing journals that we receive in the post, and documenting books that fellows have borrowed. It’s been a slow but steady start, and later this week I’ll have some time to work (play!) in the book stack, cross-checking shelf marks and shelving order with the assistant librarian following a re-organisation that was done before my time.
On the way here, I studied English Literature and History at Aberystwyth. I then decided I’d rather read medieval French and went onto an MA in Medieval Studies at the University of Bristol. Afterwards, I spent a few months volunteering in a number of museums and archives in Bristol and London and a summer “stockpiling sunlight” before the start of the traineeship. There is something special about being surrounded by bound volumes though, so the inevitable vitamin D withdrawal seems like a small concession. I’m really looking forward to doing as much cataloguing as I’m allowed and racking my brain for any and all excuses to go up to the gallery of the Great Library.
Hello! I’m Gabrielle, the graduate trainee at the Codrington Library at All Souls College this year. I’m from the Seattle area, Washington State, USA. For the past few years I’ve been researching and writing about early modern English literature, focussing on depictions of swordswomen. Recently I’ve been working on an MLitt (Master’s by research) in the English Faculty here in Oxford — and working a few hours per week at the University College library. Before that I was on the English MA course at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and, what seems like ages ago, I did my BA in English at Smith College in Massachusetts. Unfortunately I’m commuting from Coventry this year, which is about an hour each way, so I can’t be as sociable as I’d like – but I’m looking forward to getting to know my fellow trainees as much as possible in the coming months!
I am absolutely delighted to be working at the Codrington Library, which I’ve found has impressive scope – from amazing illuminated medieval manuscripts to the latest law journals. I’m sure to be constantly learning new things this year, as the library staff wears many hats: from helping the various Fellows of All Souls locate research materials, welcoming readers from around the university (undergraduate and graduate), keeping the collections up to date, handling a steady stream of archive and research queries, and much more – all with three employees total!
We’ve been discussing when would be a good time to offer a tour – I hope everyone will be able to come by to see this beautiful and historic library!
(Photo courtesy of simononly via Creative Commons)
Hullo! My name’s Will, and I’m the graduate trainee at the Codrington Library at All Souls College. I graduated from Merton College, Oxford in 2009 with a degree in English, and then studied for a Masters degree at the same College before starting at All Souls. Since no single day is entirely representative of my experience at work (variety being one of the main attractions of working in a college library), this little diary is a bit of a chimera, with lots of different events from my usual working week unceremoniously lumped together. Still, I hope it will sketch out some of the things you might encounter as a trainee at an Oxford College. Here goes…
8:45am – Arrive at the Codrington. Say hullo to Betty (our library scout). Open office. Switch on lights. Sigh. Put on kettle.
9:00am – Check the Fellows’ borrowing register (latterly an impressive leather-bound tome, currently an orange exercise book, soon to be an impressive leather-bound tome again). I add any new withdrawals to the relevant spread sheet, and update the book with today’s date.
9:25am – A mysterious parcel has arrived overnight. Excitement builds. It contains law textbooks and periodicals. Excitement fades.
9:30am – Open exterior door to Readers. Switch on recess lighting in the Great Library and the law reading room.
The Great Library.
9:40am – I add the new law journals to our Scandex (a sort of squashed filing-cabinet used for keeping track of standing orders/journals), stamp, and then shelve on our ‘New Journals’ display. Eventually these issues will be catalogued online, but serials cataloguing is a scary business that I leave to braver people. For the moment, I notice that some of the series from last year are now complete, so I bundle them up and put them aside ready to be sent to the binders. I add holdings records for the textbooks on Aleph (the university’s circulation and cataloguing software), create catalogue cards for them (yes, we still do this), stamp and bookplate, then shelve.
9:45am – I continue with my trainee project. This is the part of your traineeship where you’re allowed to undertake a self-contained task that will benefit the library, or conduct a bit of research into the library’s collections and history. I’ve elected to create a database of Codrington Readers up to 1900, based on signatures in the original admissions book. The library began admitting non-Fellows from the wider university in 1867, on the condition they behave nicely and sign the admissions register. Creating the database involves transcribing hundreds of signatures, of varying legibility. In many cases I have to make an educated guess, and cross-reference with the Oxford Historical Register , individual College Registers, and “other sources” (i.e. Google). My success rate is reasonable, but progress can be painfully slow. I’ve reached the early 1880s.
10:15am – Two new readers arrive (an historian and an archaeologist). I process their applications, make up their library cards, and give them a brief introduction to the library.
10:20am – One of the new readers requests a book from the stack (something on military history). I mooch off to fetch it.
10:25am – New reader no.3 (a geographer).
10:45am – Tea time. Someone’s eaten all the white chocolate wafers.
11:30am – Much excitement. I think I have pinned down one of the more elusive signatures from the admissions register: “R. Caldwell, Tmnevelly”. Much searching turns up a Dr. (later Bishop) Robert Caldwell, an evangelist missionary and linguist who travelled widely in Southern India (“Tmnevelly”, it seems, is the transliterated name of a settlement in the modern Indian state of Tamil Nadu).
12 noon – Lunchtime! Spicy sausage with couscous and chili jam.
12:30pm – The post has arrived. A donation from the Warden (the head of the College) concerning European Merger Law, a few invoices from EBSCO (our main journal supplier), the latest issues of three journals, and a book about Early Gunpowder Artillery. I add the invoices to our accounts spread sheet and add a holdings record for the Artillery book, pausing for a wry chuckle at the author’s picture (think Bill Bailey in a jerkin). I then process the journals (more wrestling with the Scandex), and strategically ignore the donation for the moment.
My desk, looking quite tidy.
1pm – Back to the admissions book. I’m using the 19th century registers of Lincoln’s Inn and Inner Temple in an attempt to track down a few of the more stubborn signatures.
2pm – Spend a frustrating 10 minutes attempting to locate a book in the stack, only to find it was sat in the office – 6 feet from my desk – the whole time. Grrr. Time for tea.
2:30pm – Another donation, this time from an avant-garde artist in Poznan. The book is beyond my cataloguing skills, so I pass it to my colleague Fiona. Instead, I do the easy physical processing stuff, such as the donor’s bookplate, library stamps, and pressmark. I add the title to our donations spread sheet, and write a brief acknowledgement note (discovering lots of new Polish letter-forms in Microsoft Word in the process). Eventually this note will be signed by the Fellow Librarian, and sent to the donor as a thank you.
3pm – I carry on with my cataloguing training. I’ve already been taught how to add simple holdings records for single and multipart items in Aleph , but now I’m learning to catalogue books from scratch. This involves mastering the shadowy art of the MARC record. MARC is a sort of rudimentary programming language that allows bibliographical data to be read by machines. It’s not impossibly hard, and I’m getting better with practice, but it can be rather pedantic and fiddly. There are lots of rules and procedures to remember, and it’s a real test of my concentration. Mercifully the person running the course at the Bodleian has a sense of humour, and my practice cataloguing tasks are all for ludicrous made-up books. My favourite so far is “Proceedings of the fourth California Prune Symposium”.
4pm – I have a long chat with the Assistant Librarian about her on-going attempts to construct a database of College Fellows (current and historic). Seems very complicated. More tea required.
4:30pm – More cataloguing exercises. My concentration wavers when an external researcher arrives to view a manuscript and some early printed books. The Codrington has lots of these (about a third of the entire collection of 185,000 items dates from before 1800), and I never miss an opportunity to shamelessly peer over people’s shoulders when something interesting gets called up.
Spiral staircase in the library office (my desk is at the bottom).
5:30pm – Some re-shelving (apparently a task no trainee can avoid), re-filing of catalogue cards (most hated job), and general tidying up.
6:15pm – I lock the Fellows’ door (an entrance reserved for members of the College) and do the washing up.
6:25pm – The Assistant Librarian politely encourages our few remaining readers to begin packing up.
6:30pm – Home time!
Well, I hope that’s given you an idea of an average (ish) day as a library trainee at All Souls. The traineeship for 2013/14 is being advertised now (closing date: April 5), so if you have any questions about the job please do feel free to drop me an email, either at will.beharrell@all-souls.ox.ac.uk, or via the library’s general enquiries address: codrington.library@all-souls.ox.ac.uk. You can also find more information on the library website: http://www.all-souls.ox.ac.uk/content/The_Codrington_Library.
Hello, I’m Helen and I’m the graduate trainee at All Souls College. Yes, I’m the one looking the wrong way in the group photo – there’s always one, and it’s usually me! Since graduating from Bristol University in 2005 with a degree in English, I have worked for a year as a medical secretary, completed a PGCE at Oxford University and taught in a secondary comprehensive school for three years, so librarianship is a complete change of direction for me. So far I’m really enjoying it and feel extremely lucky to have got a place on the graduate trainee scheme.
All Souls is a fascinating place to work; it’s unique and it can be difficult to explain how it runs as it is very far from your “typical” library. The college doesn’t have any students, so the library primarily caters for the Fellows of All Souls, although any student of Oxford University can apply to read here – this can come as a surpise to some people who think of All Souls as being terribly exclusive. Actually the library actively encourages undergraduate readers and it is certainly an awe-inspiring place to study. The library itself specialises in History and Law, although its collection covers a much broader range than this. It is also the home to some real treasures, including 457 Wren drawings, which we get a lot of enquiries about.
We open today so I’m looking forward to seeing what term-time brings and to the rest of my year at All Souls.
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