The Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, dating to 1320 when Thomas de Cobham, Bishop of Worcester, endowed Oxford University with money to build a library that would be separate from the colleges. Funds were low, a tradition that continues to the present day, and the original building was in fact just a room, small and architecturally insignificant. Books piled up in odd corners until in 1444 the library was endowed with a priceless collection of 281 rare manuscripts by Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, the brother of King Henry V. The custodians realised they were on to a good thing and secured some funds to start work on a new building just inside the city walls, where the Bodleian Library still stands today. The oldest parts of the building can be seen in the Harry Potter movies and date to 1478.

Fortunes fluctuated over the years -– at one point in the mid-sixteenth century the poor librarians were so strapped for cash that they had to sell all the desks and rent the room to the Faculty of Medicine -– but over time, various benefactors came to the rescue, one of whom, Thomas Bodley (1545-1613), gave his name to the institution. Wings and quadrangles were added in all directions; extensive warrens were dug underneath the behemoth, miles of shelves all piled high. Within the city there is a secret underground railway, used exclusively for transporting books.

Students looking for obscure tomes must sometimes wait for a few days to get their books, which can cause disaster for lazy last minute types desperate to finish an essay for a tutorial the next day. Students looking for a cheap laugh may amuse themselves by getting a written permission slip from their tutors allowing them to order dirty books -– for academic purposes, of course. Somewhere below ground, in between Biology and Botany, there is a small concrete room dedicated to the reading of smut. Anyone who produces the requisite note is escorted there by a blushing librarian, who must then stay with the reader whilst he peruses his chosen tomes chastely.

With such a weight of legend around the library, it came as something of a shock to read Maev Kennedy’s Guardian article this week. Today, space is at such a premium that over 1.5 million books are stored outside Oxford, as far away as Cheshire. (Note for North Americans: Cheshire is near Liverpool, where the Beatles came from. It is the richest county in the UK, with the widest selection of grooming services, due to the fact that it is the favoured habitat for footballers.) Apart from the continual bequests from the great and the good, this is one of six institutions in the UK which can legally demand a copy of every single book ever published: the collection grows by 5,000 books a week. And so after months of nightmares, Director Sarah Thomas has decided to move the vast majority of the collection to a warehouse in Swindon, a dull industrial town thirty miles away from the dreaming spires. (I initially read Sweden, hence the extent of my shock.) Eight million volumes will be transported there by October; the world’s largest movement of books since the British Library changed premises a few years ago. Unwilling to take any chances, Thomas has bought space for 16 million more. They will all be accessible and treated with respect: after all, she said, “These aren’t cabbages”.

If only the people in charge the British Library had been that well informed: Maev Kennedy also revealed this week that they have “mislaid” 9,000 books.