Tag Archives: books

Book display: LGBTQ+ history

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To mark Pride Month, library staff have curated a book display on LGBTQ+ history.

Books displayed on shelving. A poster reads "LGBTQ+ history" and has an image of the progress pride flag.

Many of our titles this year focus on aspects of the history of the gay rights movement. These include An Angel in Sodom : Henry Gerber and the Birth of the Gay Rights Movement, Let the record show : a political history of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 and The engagement : a quarter century of defending, defining, and expanding marriage in America.

Meanwhile, Coming out Republican : a history of the gay right and Communists in closets : queering the history 1930s-1990s examine the history of queer identities within specific political movements, and Aberrations in black : toward a queer of color critique discusses the intersection between race and sexuality in the field of sociology. The Politicization of Trans Identity: An Analysis of Backlash, Scapegoating, and Dog-Whistling from Obergefell to Bostock and American teenager : how trans kids are surviving hate and finding joy in a turbulent era examine the current landscape of trans rights in the United States.

Other titles on display include:

Readers may also be interested in the following online resources:

  • The Library of Congress’s LGBTQ+ Studies Web Archive collects and preserves online content which documents LGBTQ+ history, scholarship, and culture in the United States and around the world.
  • The Bodleian’s LGBTQ+ History Resources LibGuide directs users to a wide range of information resources, mostly freely available online, grouped by topic, period and format.
  • The LGBTQIA+ Archives are a free, searchable digital archive of LGBTQIA+ historical resources. The “Archives & Resources” link at the bottom of the homepage also provides links to many other websites, archives and projects.

The display can be found on the ground floor of the library, near the staircase. Many of the books on display are loanable, and some are available as ebooks.

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

Book display: Frances Perkins

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The Vere Harmsworth Library’s latest book display explores the life of Frances Perkins, the US Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945 and the first female member of the US presidential cabinet. She is known for her work on the New Deal and for upholding workers’ rights.

Books and posters displayed on shelving

The display features two works by Perkins herself: The Roosevelt I knew, and People at work. Readers will also find biographies including Madam Secretary, Frances Perkins and Frances Perkins : a member of the Cabinet, and contextualising works such as Nothing to fear : FDR’s inner circle and the hundred days that created modern America, Challenge and change : a brief history [of the U.S. Department of Labor, 1913-1963, and For the many : American feminists and the global fight for democratic equality.

Library staff have also selected online resources which may be of interest to those wanting to learn more about Perkins’ life and legacy. The Library of Congress research guide and the Frances Perkins Center website both provide biographical information and links to a range of other resources for further research. Readers may also be interested in Time magazine’s August 1933 article, Labor: Truce at a Crisis, which discusses her appointment as Secretary of Labor, or in chapter 3 of U.S. Department of Labor: the first seventy-five years, which discusses the period 1933-1945 during which Perkins served in that role.

The book display can be found on the ground floor of the Vere Harmsworth Library by the comfy chairs towards the back of the room. Books are labelled as loanable or for library use only, and links to ebooks are given where the Bodleian has ebook access.

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

New Alain Locke Collection titles – January 2026 intake!

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The new selection of titles for the Alain Locke Collection are now available and on display in the Vere Harmsworth Library!

Book shelves showing rows of books. Sign above saying Alain Locke Collection.

Readers will be able to see the new selections on the Ground Floor of the Library. This area, as part of our agreement with the Association of American Rhodes Scholars (AARS), will be dedicated to displaying and promoting the Collection.

With the kind agreement of the AARS, two collection intakes will be taken each year, totalling $10,000 worth of books per year.

A selection of some of the book covers from the January 2026 intake.

You can view the full list here and you can view all selected Alain Locke Collection titles here.

About the collection

In spring 2021, the VHL and RAI agreed to create the Alain Locke Collection with support from the AARS. Named after the first African American Rhodes Scholar, the collection aims to focus on research monographs in the areas of African American history, politics, biography and culture, alongside notable gaps in material not produced by commercial publishers.

The Bodleian is committed to providing students and researchers with world class access to resources to enable them to fulfil their scholarly ambitions. We are therefore hugely grateful to the AARS for pledging a gift of $25,000 over five years supporting the Alain Locke Collection. This supports our intention for the VHL to become a leading centre for the study of African American history, politics, and culture.

The establishment of the Alain Locke Collection will allow the VHL to expand the purchase of African American focused research monographs, without affecting expenditure on other research areas. It will build on the VHL’s current holdings and run alongside the continued intake of research monographs via the legal deposit agreements and e-book packages. It will allow the VHL to identify and address potential gaps in some of the older materials. Most significantly, it will demonstrate our commitment to representing African American history and culture within our collections.

Current students and researchers can recommend titles to be purchased for the Alain Locke Collection by contacting the Vere Harmsworth Librarian (bethan.davies@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).

If you have any further questions about the Alain Locke Collection, or the display, please contact Bethan Davies. To find out more about supporting the Vere Harmsworth Library and the Alain Locke collection please contact the Vere Harmsworth Library (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.

Book display: American Sports

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The book display in the Vere Harmsworth Library has been updated, this time with the theme of sports in the United States. Sports are a huge part of cultural life and a major industry in the U.S., and this display explores the history of American sporting activity and how this has related to political, religious and economic issues.

Books and information posters displayed on shelving.

Library staff have selected books from our collection which explore various aspects of this topic. Amongst others, we have titles delving into the history of specific sports, such as Baseball as America : seeing ourselves through our national game, Football nation : four hundred years of America’s game : from the Library of Congress and Roller derby : the history of an American sport; titles which examine how sports reflect and influence political issues, such as Democracy at the ballpark : sport, spectatorship, and politics, The Black athlete revolt : the sport justice movement in the age of #BlackLivesMatter and The athletic crusade : sport and American cultural imperialism; and titles exploring issues of identity and equality in sport, such as Mexican American fastpitch : identity at play in vernacular sport, Equality unfulfilled : how Title IX’s policy design undermines change to college sports, The native American identity in sports : creating and preserving a culture and A spectacular leap : black women athletes in twentieth-century America. To discover the full range of titles selected, why not come in and browse?

Alongside these books, we are sharing links to a number of online resources which may be of interest. From the Library of Congress website we have highlighted research guides on various sports and recreation topics, a collection of motion pictures from 1894 to 1915 depicting American work and leisure activities including sports, and a research guide to the sports industry. We have also suggested the Society for American Soccer History’s online resources, and the SPORTDiscus database (this last one will require a single sign on or for users to be connected to the Bodleian Libraries WiFi).

The book display can be found on the ground floor of the Vere Harmsworth Library by the comfy chairs towards the back of the room. Books are labelled as loanable or for library use only, and links to ebooks are given where the Bodleian has ebook access.

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

New AKS books for 2025/2026

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Each year, the Association of American Rhodes Scholars generously pays for the library to purchase approximately £3000 worth of books in memory of Frank Aydelotte (first American Secretary of the Rhodes Scholarships), Paul Kieffer (President of the Association of American Rhodes Scholars, 1957-1969), and Courtney Smith (second American Secretary of the Rhodes Scholarships) in order to develop the breadth and depth of the VHL Collections.

The collection for 2025/2026 is now available and can be found on the ground floor of the Vere Harmsworth Library, next to the Alain Locke Collection. All books in the AKS Collection are loanable.

Books displayed on shelf with AKS plaque.

Selections from previous years are shelved as part of the main collection. The books currently on display separately can be identified by the ‘AKS’ shelfmark prefix.

A list of the latest AKS books can be found on SOLO by performing an advanced search for shelfmarks containing ‘AKS’, limiting the scope to the Vere Harmsworth Library.

We are grateful as ever to the Association of American Rhodes Scholars for funding these purchases and for their ongoing support of the library.

If you have any further questions about the AKS Collection, or the display, please contact Bethan Davies. If you have any further questions about working in the Vere Harmsworth Library, please email vhl@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

New Alain Locke Collection Titles – Summer 2025 intake!

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The new selection of titles for the Alain Locke Collection are now available and on display in the Vere Harmsworth Library!

Book shelves. Poster above says Alain Locke Collection.

Readers will be able to see the new selections on the Ground Floor of the Library. This area, as part of our agreement with the Association of American Rhodes Scholars (AARS), will be dedicated to displaying and promoting the Collection.

With the kind agreement of the AARS, two collection intakes will be taken each year, totalling $10,000 worth of books per year.

Book covers.
Book covers from our August 2025 intake.

You can view the full list here and you can view all selected Alain Locke Collection titles here.

About the collection

In spring 2021, the VHL and RAI agreed to create the Alain Locke Collection with support from the AARS. Named after the first African American Rhodes Scholar, the collection aims to focus on research monographs in the areas of African American history, politics, biography and culture, alongside notable gaps in material not produced by commercial publishers.

The Bodleian is committed to providing students and researchers with world class access to resources to enable them to fulfil their scholarly ambitions. We are therefore hugely grateful to the AARS for pledging a gift of $25,000 over five years supporting the Alain Locke Collection. This supports our intention for the VHL to become a leading centre for the study of African American history, politics, and culture.

The establishment of the Alain Locke Collection will allow the VHL to expand the purchase of African American focused research monographs, without affecting expenditure on other research areas. It will build on the VHL’s current holdings and run alongside the continued intake of research monographs via the legal deposit agreements and e-book packages. It will allow the VHL to identify and address potential gaps in some of the older materials. Most significantly, it will demonstrate our commitment to representing African American history and culture within our collections.

Current students and researchers can recommend titles to be purchased for the Alain Locke Collection by contacting the Vere Harmsworth Librarian (bethan.davies@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).

If you have any further questions about the Alain Locke Collection, or the display, please contact Bethan Davies. To find out more about supporting the Vere Harmsworth Library and the Alain Locke collection please contact the Vere Harmsworth Library (vhl@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).

New Alain Locke Collection Titles – Winter 2024-5 intake!

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The new selection of titles for the Alain Locke Collection are now available and on display in the Vere Harmsworth Library!

Alain Locke Display, taken January 2025

Readers will be able to see the new selections on the Ground Floor of the Library. This area, as part of our agreement with the Association of American Rhodes Scholars (AARS), will be dedicated to displaying and promoting the Collection.

With the kind agreement of the AARS, two collection intakes will be taken each year, totalling $10,000 worth of books per year.

You can see above a selection of the new titles now available. You can view the full list here and you can view all selected Alain Locke Collection titles here.

About the collection

In spring 2021, the VHL and RAI agreed to create the Alain Locke Collection with support from the AARS. Named after the first African American Rhodes Scholar, the collection aims to focus on research monographs in the areas of African American history, politics, biography and culture, alongside notable gaps in material not produced by commercial publishers.

The Bodleian is committed to providing students and researchers with world class access to resources to enable them to fulfil their scholarly ambitions. We are therefore hugely grateful to the AARS for pledging a gift of $25,000 over five years supporting the Alain Locke Collection. This supports our intention for the VHL to become a leading centre for the study of African American history, politics, and culture.

The establishment of the Alain Locke Collection will allow the VHL to expand the purchase of African American focused research monographs, without affecting expenditure on other research areas. It will build on the VHL’s current holdings and run alongside the continued intake of research monographs via the legal deposit agreements and e-book packages. It will allow the VHL to identify and address potential gaps in some of the older materials. Most significantly, it will demonstrate our commitment to representing African American history and culture within our collections.

Current students and researchers can recommend titles to be purchased for the Alain Locke Collection by contacting the Vere Harmsworth Librarian (bethan.davies@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).

If you have any further questions about the Alain Locke Collection, or the display, please contact Bethan Davies. To find out more about supporting the Vere Harmsworth Library and the Alain Locke collection please contact the Vere Harmsworth Library (vhl@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).

Book Display: Martin Luther King Jr.

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Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a US federal holiday honouring King and the impact he had in advancing civil rights in the United States, falls this year on Monday 20th January. To mark this occasion, the Vere Harmsworth Library has created a book display highlighting some of the resources in our collection which relate to King and his legacy.

12 books displayed on a bookcase with two A4 posters. One poster has the title "Martin Luther King Jr." and a photo of King addressing a crowd, and the other has the title "Looking for more?" and five QR codes with accompanying text. Book titles include "Dream and legacy", "Martin Luther King, Jr., encyclopedia", and "Strength to love".

The display includes overviews of the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr., such as The Martin Luther King, Jr. encyclopedia and King : the life of Martin Luther King, as well as works by him, such as Strength to love, a collection of his sermons, and his autobiography. There are also titles focusing on more specific and lesser known aspects of his life and legacy, such as Brothers in the beloved community : the friendship of Thich Nhat Hanh and Martin Luther King Jr and The radical King.

We have also signposted a number of online resources for further research, such as The King Institute website and The Civil Rights History Project.

The book display can be found on the ground floor on the left hand side, near the armchairs and low table. Many of these books can be loaned out, and some are also available as ebooks via SOLO.

To find out more about using the Vere Harmsworth Library collections please contact the Vere Harmsworth Library (vhl@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).

Book Display: US Presidential Elections

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The Vere Harmsworth Library has set up a book display highlighting titles in our collection which relate to US presidential elections.

Books displayed on three shelves. An A4 poster on the top shelf says US Presidential Elections with a picture of a ballot box. An A4 poster on the second shelf has information about events and online resources.

The US presidential election book display at the VHL.

The book display can be found on the ground floor on the left hand side, near the armchairs and low table. Readers are able, and indeed encouraged, to read and borrow these books as normal, and several of the selected titles are also available electronically through SOLO.

The books chosen for the display cover a range of subjects including voting rights, presidential campaigning, polling, and the workings of the electoral process.

The display also points readers towards online archives of documents relating to historical presidential elections, an election special of the Rothermere American Institute’s podcast, and an upcoming event at the Rothermere American Institute for expert discussion of what happened in the US 2024 elections.

The book display will be changed over in November to a new theme.

To find out more about using the Vere Harmsworth Library collections please contact the Vere Harmsworth Library (vhl@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).