Tag Archives: ground floor

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.

Scaffolding installation in the RAI Foyer (2nd April & 7th April 2026) UPDATE: 9.4.26 Removal completed

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UPDATE: The scaffolding has been successfully removed from the RAI Foyer. Access into the building through all three entrances (including the automated door) are available. [9.4.2026]

UPDATE: The scaffolding will be removed from the RAI Foyer on the morning of Thursday 9th April. As before, access into the building will be maintained, but the automated door will be out of use. Readers should expect some noise disturbance from the foyer during this time. [8.4.2026]

UPDATE: the scaffolding has been installed in the RAI Foyer, but the essential works have not yet been completed. The scaffolding remains in place, but access into the building is maintained, and the automated door can be used. We will continue to provide updates for when the scaffolding will be removed. [7.4.2026]

Essential works in the Rothermere American Institute (RAI) Foyer, will require the installation of scaffolding in the Foyer on the 2nd April, and removal of the scaffolding on the 7th April.

Entry into the RAI building and the Library will be maintained, but the automated door (on the far right as you approach the building entrance) will be unavailable. The revolving door and manual door on the far left will remain available. Signage will be provided outside for building users who are unable to access the building.

Access to the RAI basement level will be restricted.

The Library will remain open as per our currently advertised opening hours (9am-7pm). However, Readers should expect noise disruption whilst the scaffolding works are taking place. It is recommended that Readers sit on the western side of the Library (the side where the Group Study Rooms are located, closest to Rhodes House) and avoid the Mezzanine level. Readers may also request soft earbuds from the Library Enquiry Desk.

Please note that the library will also be closed, as previously advertised, on Friday 3rd April and Monday 6th April for the Easter Bank Holidays.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused during these works. If you have any questions about the works, or using the library during this time, please email vhl@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Book display: American film

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Our current book display encourages readers to explore the history and cultural impact of film and the movie industry in the United States, timed to coincide with the film award season.

books displayed on shelving with posters

Some of the books on display, such as The Hollywood motion picture blacklist : seventy-five years later and The Academy and the award : the coming of age of Oscar and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, focus on specific aspects of the film industry, while others like The American drive-in movie theater and Videoland : movie culture at the American video store look at the culture around watching movies. Other books examine the impact of specific filmmakers and studios, with titles including Stanley Kubrick : American filmmaker, Understanding Disney : the manufacture of fantasy, and The Warner brothers, or specific places, such as Fade in, crossroads : a history of the southern cinema and Tinsel and rust : how Hollywood manufactured the Rust Belt.

Looking at the wider picture, some of the selected titles explore the various ways in which the American film industry interacts with politics, such as Hollywood goes to war : films and American society, 1939-1952, The sky is falling! : the unexpected politics of Hollywood’s superheroes and zombies, and Hollywood’s long civil war. Other areas covered by the display include representation and identity in American films, through titles such as Black Caesars and foxy Cleopatras : a history of blaxploitation in cinema, Fade in, crossroads : a history of the southern cinema, and Queer cinema in America : an encyclopedia of LGBTQ films, characters, and stories.

The display also highlights the following online resources which may be of interest:

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: Food and American history, politics and culture

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Our latest book display presents a range of books from our collections which explore how the consumption and production of food in the US interact with various social and political issues, today and throughout history.

Books about food displayed on shelving

The books on display cover themes including food insecurity (Feeding the crisis : care and abandonment in America’s food safety net and Life on the other border : farmworkers and food justice in Vermont), consumer activism (Upsetting food : three eras of food protest in the United States), the relationship between food and identity (Eating while black : food shaming and race in America, A taste of power : food and American identities and Sameness in diversity : food and globalization in modern America) and more. A full list of the other titles on display can be found below.

The library team has also suggested a range of online resources for those interested in delving deeper into food studies. The Food and Foodways Web Archive is a selection of food-related websites archived by the Library of Congress. Civil Eats is a news site covering the politics of the American food system, with an emphasis on social justice and sustainability. The Conrad N. Hilton Library lists a range of open access digital collections on food history, with a focus on historical menus, recipes and cookery books, and the UC Berkley library suggests a broad range of online archives and collections relating to diverse aspects of food studies.

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.

Other titles on display

If you have any questions about working 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).