Monthly Archives: December 2025

Winter Vacation opening hours and loans

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Please be aware of the following updates as we move into the Winter Vacation.

Opening Hours

From Monday 8th December 2025 to Sunday 11th January 2026, the Vere Harmsworth Library and the RAI Building will have the following opening hours:

Monday – Friday            9am – 7pm

Saturday – Sunday        CLOSED

The Library will close for Christmas at 5pm on Tuesday 23rd December, and reopen at 9am on Monday 5th January.

Please check the VHL website for updates and upcoming closure periods.

Vacation Loans

Vacation loans are now in place across the Bodleian Libraries. Books checked out will not need to be returned until Tuesday 20th January. You may return your book before that time if you wish.

Please note that vacation loans do not apply to self collect books, which will still need to be renewed every seven days. Furthermore, vacation loans only apply to some of the loanable books from offsite storage; others will be automatically renewed after their normal lending period (in most cases, seven days) unless requested by another reader. If in any doubt, please check your MySOLO account, and if you are still unsure then please contact vhl@bodleian.ox.ac.uk or whichever library you picked the book up from.

We hope you have a lovely break and enjoy the holiday season!

If you have any further questions about working in the Vere Harmsworth Library or borrowing items, please ask at the Information Desk, or email vhl@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Book Display: VHL Advent Calendar

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This month, the Vere Harmsworth Library’s book display is becoming an advent calendar, counting up the days of December. A new book will be added each day until we close for Christmas at 5pm on 23rd December.

A bookcase holds one book, titled "One drop", followed by paper printouts of numbers 2 to 24. A poster above them reads "Vere Harmsworth Library Advent Calendar".
Same display but 12 books are displayed and only numbers 13 to 24 remain.

The book display on 1st and 12th December.

The book display can be found on the ground floor at the back left, by the comfy chairs.

List of titles on display (updated throughout December):

  1. One drop : shifting the lens on race (Yaba Blay, Noelle Théard)
  2. Breaking the two-party doom loop : the case for multiparty democracy in America (Lee Drutman)
  3. The three-cornered war : the Union, the Confederacy, and native peoples in the fight for the West (Megan Kate Nelson)
  4. Four hats in the ring : the 1912 election and the birth of modern American politics (Lewis L. Gould)
  5. The US Constitution in five minutes (Joseph L. Smith and David Klein, eds)
  6. Six crises (Richard M. Nixon)
  7. Protest on trial : the Seattle 7 conspiracy (Kit Bakke)
  8. Eight ways to run the country : a new and revealing look at left and right (Brian Patrick Mitchell)
  9. Nine for nine : the Pennsylvania mine rescue miracle (Andrew Morton)
  10. A history of America in ten strikes (Erik Loomis)
  11. Benjamin Banneker and us : eleven generations of an American family (Rachel Jamison Webster)
  12. City of scoundrels : the twelve days of disaster that gave birth to modern Chicago (Gary Krist)
  13. The $13 trillion question : how America manages its debt (David Wessel, ed.)
  14. Decisions at Fredericksburg : the fourteen critical decisions that defined the battle (Chris Mackowski)
  15. Beyond $15 : immigrant workers, faith activists, and the revival of the labor movement (Jonathan Rosenblum)
  16. Sixteen American presidents (David K. E. Bruce)
  17. Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress (Michael O’Leary)
  18. Eighteen acres under glass (Robert Keith Gray)
  19. Decisions at Gettysburg : the nineteen critical decisions that defined the campaign (Chris Mackowski, maps by Edward Alexander)
  20. Twenty minutes in Manhattan (Michael Sorkin)
  21. Twenty-one Americans : being profiles of some people famous in our time (Niven Busch, Jr.; together with silly pictures of them drawn by De Miskey)
  22. The Nixon presidency : twenty-two intimate perspectives of Richard M. Nixon (Kenneth W. Thompson)
  23. Undergraduates : a study of morale in twenty-three American colleges and universities (Richard Henry Edwards)
  24. Daytona 24 Hours : the definitive history of America’s great endurance race (J. J. O’Malley)

If you have any questions about resources in the Vere Harmsworth Library, please email vhl@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.