The Bodleian Libraries are a collection of 28 libraries that serve the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, including the

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second- ...

itself, as well as many other (but not all) central and faculty libraries. As of the 2016–17 year, the libraries collectively hold almost 13 million printed items, as well as numerous other objects and artefacts. A major product of this collaboration has been a joint

integrated library system An integrated library system (ILS), also known as a library management system (LMS), is an enterprise resource planning system for a library, used to track items owned, orders made, bills paid, and patrons who have borrowed. An ILS usually is co ...

, OLIS (Oxford Libraries Information System), and its public interface, '
SOLO
'' (Search Oxford Libraries Online), which provides a

union catalog A union catalog is a combined library catalog describing the collections of a number of libraries. Union catalogs have been created in a range of media, including book format, microform, cards and more recently, networked electronic databases. ...

ue covering all member libraries, as well as the libraries of individual colleges and other faculty libraries, which are not members of the group but do share

cataloguing In library and information science, cataloging ( US) or cataloguing ( UK) is the process of creating metadata representing information resources, such as books, sound recordings, moving images, etc. Cataloging provides information such as auth ...

information. Its busiest library is the Social Sciences Library, which, at its peak, serves 7,500 visitors in a period of approximately nine weeks.

History

Founded in February 2000 as Oxford University Library Services (OULS), the organisation was renamed on 2 March 2010. As of the 2018-2019 year, the group cares for almost 13 million printed items, of archives and manuscripts, and a staff of over 561 (

full-time equivalent Full-time equivalent (FTE), or whole time equivalent (WTE), is a unit that indicates the workload of an employee, employed person (or student) in a way that makes workloads or class loads comparable across various contexts. FTE is often used to me ...

s). It is the second largest library in the UK (behind the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

). The continued growth of the library has resulted in a severe shortage of storage space. Over 1.5 million items are stored outside Oxford. Locations formerly used included a redundant village church at

Nuneham Courtenay Nuneham Courtenay is a village and civil parish about southeast of Oxford. It occupies a pronounced section of the left bank of the River Thames. Geography The parish is bounded to the west by the River Thames and on other sides by field bound ...

and a disused

salt mine Salt mining extracts natural salt deposits from underground. The mined salt is usually in the form of halite (commonly known as rock salt), and extracted from evaporite formations. History Before the advent of the modern internal combustio ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

. In 2007 and 2008, in an effort to obtain better and more capacious storage facilities for the library’s collections, Oxford University Library Services (OULS) tried to obtain planning permission to build a new book depository on the

Osney Mead Osney or Osney Island (; an earlier spelling of the name is ''Oseney'') is a riverside community in the west of the city of Oxford, England. In modern times the name is applied to a community also known as Osney Town astride Botley Road, just we ...

site, to the southwest of

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

city centre. However, this application was unsuccessful and the new Book Storage Facility was instead constructed at a site on

South Marston South Marston is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The village is about north-east of Swindon town centre. History The earliest documentary evidence for continuous settlement dates from the 13th centu ...

Industrial Estate on the outskirts of

Swindon Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon un ...

. Thi
Book Storage Facility
which cost £26 million, opened in October 2010 and has 153 miles (246 kilometres) of shelving, including 3,224 bays with 95,000 shelf levels, and 600 map cabinets to hold 1.2 million maps and other items. Previously-existing

premises are used for backroom operations.

Structure

The Bodleian Libraries group includes centralised departments: * Academic and Learning Services (ALS)
Bodleian Digital Library Systems and Services
(BDLSS, includin
Oxford Digital Library
(ODL) and Imaging Services) * Collections Management (Collections & Resource Description and Storage & Logistics) * Communications * Conservation and Collection Care The current Director of the Libraries

Richard Ovenden Richard Ovenden (; born 25 March 1964) is a British librarian and author. He currently serves as Bodley's Librarian in the University of Oxford, having been appointed in 2014. Ovenden also serves as the Director of the Bodleian Library's Centre ...

, like his predecessors Sarah Thomas and founding director Reginald Carr, holds the position concurrently with that of Bodley's Librarian since 2014. Senior administrative staff are based in the

Clarendon Building Clarendon Building is an early 18th-century neoclassical building of the University of Oxford. It is in Broad Street, Oxford, England, next to the Bodleian Library and the Sheldonian Theatre and near the centre of the city. It was built between ...

on the central Bodleian estate.

Libraries

As of September 2017, the website of the group lists the following member libraries: * Bodleian KB Chen China Centre Library * Bodleian Education Library * Bodleian Health Care Libraries (Cairns Library at

John Radcliffe Hospital The John Radcliffe Hospital (informally known as the JR) is a large tertiary teaching hospital in Oxford, England. It forms part of the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is named after John Radcliffe, an 18th-century physic ...

, Knowledge Centre at Old Road, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Horton Library at

Horton General Hospital The Horton General Hospital is a National Health Service hospital located on the Oxford Road, in the Calthorpe ward of Banbury. It is managed by Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. History Pre-1948 The earliest part of the hospita ...

Banbury Banbury is a historic market town on the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire, South East England. It had a population of 54,335 at the 2021 Census. Banbury is a significant commercial and retail centre for the surrounding area of north Oxfordshire ...

) * Bodleian History Faculty Library, in

Radcliffe Camera The Radcliffe Camera (colloquially known as the "Rad Cam" or "The Camera"; from Latin , meaning 'room') is a building of the University of Oxford, England, designed by James Gibbs in neo-classical style and built in 1737–49 to house the Radcli ...

* Bodleian Japanese Library * Bodleian Latin American Centre Library * Bodleian Law Library *

(Old Library,

Weston Library The Weston Library is part of the Bodleian Library, the main research library of the University of Oxford, reopened within the former New Bodleian Library building on the corner of Broad Street, Oxford, Broad Street and Parks Road in central Ox ...

) * Bodleian Music Faculty Library * Bodleian Oriental Institute Library * Bodleian Social Science Library * English Faculty Library * Leopold Muller Memorial Library (Jewish studies) * Philosophy and Theology Faculties Library, in former

Radcliffe Infirmary The Radcliffe Infirmary was a hospital in central north Oxford, England, located at the southern end of Woodstock Road on the western side, backing onto Walton Street. History The initial proposals to build a hospital in Oxford were put forw ...

building * Radcliffe Science Library (including the Alexander Library of Ornithology) *

Rewley House Rewley House, located on the corner of Wellington Square and St John Street in the city of Oxford, England, is the primary base of Oxford University's Department for Continuing Education (previously the Department of External Studies). Histor ...

Continuing Education Library *

Sackler Library The Sackler Library holds a large portion of the classical, art historical, and archaeological works belonging to the University of Oxford, England. History The Sackler Library building was completed in 2001 and opened on 24 September of tha ...

(classical studies, art and archaeology) * Sainsbury Library at the

Saïd Business School Saïd Business School (Oxford Saïd or SBS) is the business school of the University of Oxford. The School is a provider of management education and is consistently ranked as one of the world's top business schools. Oxford School of Management ...

* Sherardian Library of

Plant Taxonomy Plant taxonomy is the science that finds, identifies, describes, classifies, and names plants. It is one of the main branches of taxonomy (the science that finds, describes, classifies, and names living things). Plant taxonomy is closely allied ...

Taylor Institution The Taylor Institution (commonly known as the Taylorian) is the Oxford University library dedicated to the study of the languages of Europe. Its building also includes lecture rooms used by the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, Univ ...

Library (medieval, Slavonic and modern languages) * Tylor Library (anthropology) * Vere Harmsworth Library at the

Rothermere American Institute The Rothermere American Institute is a department of the University of Oxford dedicated to the interdisciplinary and comparative study of the United States of America and its place in the world. Named after the Harmsworth family, Viscounts Roth ...

* Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine Library A further 40 college libraries and 20 faculty and speciality libraries are not members of the group.

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=February 2019 2000 establishments in England Organizations established in 2000 *Bodleian Libraries *Bodleian Libraries

History

Structure

Libraries

See also

References