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Home  »   Subjects and Libraries  »  Special Collections  »  Manuscripts & Rare Books

Manuscripts and Rare Books in the Bodleian Library Group

Western Manuscripts

The Bodleian's Western Manuscripts section holds the second largest collection of manuscripts in Britain, with items ranging in date from papyri of the 3rd century B.C. to correspondence and papers of the present. Particular strengths are medieval manuscripts, 17th-century literary and historical collections, antiquarian and topographical manuscripts, and modern scholarly, literary, and political papers.

The Bodleian Library holds one of the four most important collections of modern political papers in Britain, including the Conservative Party Archive. The papers were mainly generated by politicians, public servants (particularly diplomats), journalists and broadcasters and other figures in public life and date from 1840 to the present day.

Oriental Collections

The Department of Oriental Collections is responsible for manuscripts, archival collections, early printed books and other special collections in oriental languages. These are held in the central Bodleian (New Bodleian Library), with the exception of Japanese manuscripts and rare books, which are held at the Bodleian Japanese Library at 27 Winchester Road.

In a number of the languages of Asia and North Africa, for example, in Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Persian and Sanskrit, the collections are of exceptional quality and importance. Additionally, there are many outstanding smaller collections, illuminated and illustrated manuscripts, papyri, paintings, bindings and other individual items of national and international interest in a wide range of languages including Aramaic, Armenian, Burmese, Chagatay, Coptic, Egyptian, Ethiopic, Georgian, Javanese, Korean, Malay, Mongolian, Syriac, Tibetan  and Turkish.

Small but significant collections of materials relating to Central Asia, Tibet and the Himalayas, Korea and South East Asia have been acquired largely since 1800, including a small number of 19th and 20th century archival collections relating to Asia.

Printed Ephemera

The John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera is one of the world’s most important collections of printed ephemera and spans the entire spectrum of social and printing history, including cigarette cards, betting tickets, theatre posters and programmes, trade cards and parliamentary election addresses.

Rare Books

The Rare Books department is responsible for the central Bodleian's holdings of printed books published before 1900, and for the maintenance and cataloguing of special collections donated to the library by institutions and individuals up to the present day.

The rare books holdings of the Bodleian Library reflect its history as the library of the University of Oxford since 1602, with strengths in theology, law, the classical tradition, and mathematics. The library also holds important collections of antiquarian children's books and popular literature.

Commonwealth and African Studies

The Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House (commonly known as Rhodes House Library) specializes in the history and current affairs - political, economic and social - of the Commonwealth and sub-Saharan Africa including the offshore islands. The Library does not cover the Indian sub-continent or Burma, for which readers should apply to the Upper Camera or the Oriental Institute Library (please check SOLO for locations); coverage of Sri Lanka is at present shared with the Oriental Institute Library/Upper Camera.

Rhodes House Library retains manuscript material relating to the USA, the most significant of which forms part of wide-ranging collections such as the archive of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Anti-Slavery Society Papers.

Philosophy

The Philosophy Faculty Library in Merton Street (part of the Bodleian Group) holds some rare book and manuscript material, principally the library of Thomas Fowler (1832-1904), Wykeham Professor of Logic. The collection combines rare and antiquarian material with the standard journals and textbooks of the period.

Manuscripts and Rare Books in Other Libraries

Sackler Library

The Sackler Library is one of the principal research libraries of the University of Oxford and specializes in Archaeology, Art History and Classics (Ancient History and Literature). It incorporates the collections of the former Ashmolean Library (including the Griffith Institute Library and the Western Art Library), the Classics Lending Library, the Eastern Art Library, and the History of Art Library. Their special collections web page comprises a brief list of their rare-book collections and archives.

Taylor Institution Library

The Taylor Institution Library holds the University's principal collections in modern European languages and literatures, including Linguistics and European Film Studies. There is a small manuscript collection including items by Flaubert, Gide, Sartre, Giono, as well as numerous autographs and letters. Special West European printed items include 55 incunables, ca 450 pre-1801 dictionaries, the French Enlightenment collection in the Voltaire Room, the Fiedler, Finch, Strachan, Guarini, Moore and Pring-Mill collections. East European special collections include the Morfill, Dawkins, Forbes and Hasluck collections. 

For a description of the historic collections, published in the Handbuch der historischen Buchbestände in Deutschland. Digitalisiert von Günter Kükenshöner. Hrsg. von Bernhard Fabian. Hildesheim: Olms Neue Medien 2003, see www.b2i.de/fabian?Taylor_Institution_Library.  

English Faculty Library

The English Faculty Library special collections comprise the library and papers of Wilfred Owen; books and journals relating to the study of Old Norse-Icelandic language and literature; the literary works and papers of E.H.W. Meyerstein; the Napier collection on Old and Middle English philology; and approximately 9000 pre-1850 volumes, including 251 dating 1475-1640.

Bio- and Environmental Sciences

The libraries in Bio- and Environmental Sciences include major special collections in taxonomy and forestry (Plant Sciences Library). The Taxonomic Collections are curated in association with the Oxford University Herbaria, located in the same building, and many of the books and manuscripts in the Sherard Collection relate to specimens held in the Herbaria. Most famous of these is Sibthorp’s Flora Graeca, now fully digitised.

The Oxford Forest Information Service holds extensive collections of grey literature from across the globe, fully abstracted in association with CABI.

The Alexander Library of Ornithology works in close association with the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology; its archives contain field notes and papers of many noted ornithologists, and most of its book holdings are reviewed in Ibis, journal of the British Ornithologist’s Union.

Leopold Muller Memorial Library

The Leopold Muller Memorial Library of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies associated with the University and based at Yarnton Manor about five miles north-west of Oxford) contains the Kressel Archive of Hebrew newspaper and periodical cuttings relating mainly to Jewish eminents and litterateurs of the 19th and 20th century.