Bodleian Libraries

05/06/2026

For , here's a 'sneak beak' at our upcoming talks on birds - all part of our 'Wonder of Birds' exhibition currently showing at Weston Library.

All talks are available in person and online via Zoom.
Entry fee: £5.

🪶 From Ornithology to Ethno-ornithology (Andrew Gosler)
Friday 12 June, 13.00 – 14.15
Explore the extraordinary history of bird-human interaction and the worlds of ornithology and ethno-ornithology.

🪽 A Celebration of Swifts (Chris Jarvis)
Friday 3 July, 12.30 – 13.30
To celebrate National Swift Awareness Week, discover how this most enigmatic and aerially evolved of birds has adapted to spend its life on the wing.

🐦🐦🐦The Symphony of Flocks: Collective Behaviour in Birds (Steve Portugal)
Friday 4 September, 13.00 – 14.00
Why do birds gather in groups? How do they behave when they do? What advantages do they gain from this behaviour? Learn more about the 'symphony of flocks' in this talk.

🦅 Wondering with Birds (Felice Sea Wyndham)
Thursday 24 September, 13.00 – 14.00
This talk tells the stories of how we think about the world with birds—how we fly with them in our imaginations and see them as omens of the future.

🦜 Birds in a Cage (Derek Niemann)
Friday 16 October, 13.00 – 14.00
Author Derek Niemann discusses his book 'Birds in a Cage'.

Sign up to the talks from the Event listings on our Bodleian Visit website: https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/events-exhibitions
More about the exhibition: https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/wonder-of-birds

03/06/2026

We’re marking LGBTQ+ Pride Month 2026 by remembering the history of the fight for le***an and gay rights led by OutRage!, an organisation set up in May 1990 after the murder of gay actor Michael Boothe.

For 21 years, it ran non-violent direct action and used civil disobedience as a tool to force political and religious elites of the day to accept equality between sexual orientations.

It often used intentionally obscene and insulting language to expose the hypocrisy of the elites and the institutions of the day. The Bodleian holds a collection of OutRage! materials donated by Peter Tatchell, one of its founders, in 2023.

Archive info: https://archives.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/repositories/2/resources/15368
Copyright https://outrage.org.uk/category/gallery/

01/06/2026

To celebrate , we want to give a massive THANK YOU to all of our volunteers who

👋 welcome visitors in our spaces
📚 help look after our collections
🧠 share their time, knowledge and even printing skills with us

We couldn’t do it without you!

For anyone visiting Weston Library this week, look out for our wonderful volunteers at our Space for Reading, sharing the history of our resident printing press, and giving talks on the Sheldon Tapestry Map of Oxfordshire (10am, Wed & Sat).

Photo by Ian Wallman

30/05/2026

Your weekend watch!

Watch the Friends of the Bodleian Annual Lecture featuring Richard Ovenden OBE, Bodley’s Librarian, as he explores the deliberate destruction of knowledge throughout history and its urgent relevance today.

Drawing from his acclaimed book 'Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack', Richard discusses how libraries, librarians, and archivists bear the profound responsibility of preserving and transparently sharing information, and their critical role in safeguarding knowledge for future generations.

“Why are books destroyed? It’s about control - controlling knowledge to control societies, to control the way people behave, the way people think, the way people spend money.”
– Richard Ovenden

Watch the Friends of the Bodleian Annual Lecture featuring Richard Ovenden OBE, Bodley’s Librarian, as he explores the deliberate destruction of knowledge th...

29/05/2026

A reminder of today's free family fun at the Weston Library:

Three giant Muses from Greek mythology have come down from the Clarendon Building to the Weston Library - and they’re ready to inspire young imaginations!

Meet:
🏛️ Clio (representing history)
📜 Calliope (representing epic poetry)
🗣️ Polyhymnia (representing rhetoric)

🕚 11:00–15:00

Drop in and explore. (Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.)

Drop-in family fun event inspired by the restored Clarendon Muses

27/05/2026

Looking for something free, creative and fun for kids in Oxford this Friday?

Three giant Muses from Greek mythology have come down from the Clarendon Building to the Weston Library - and they’re ready to inspire young imaginations!

Meet:
🏛️ Clio (representing history)
📜 Calliope (representing epic poetry)
🗣️ Polyhymnia (representing rhetoric)

📅 29 May, 11:00–15:00

Drop in and explore. (Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.)

More info:

Drop-in family fun event inspired by the restored Clarendon Muses

26/05/2026

We have experienced (endured? enjoyed?) the hottest May day on record. It was a weird, but a memorable one at the Bodleian, with visitors and readers moving swiftly across the quads in search of the precious shade. Our lush lawn around the Radcliffe Camera, so beautifully cut into a now famous pattern, started to fade and turn yellow. And it was becoming unbearably hot in our old buildings, so whoever could, moved over to the Weston Library, which is offering its cool space of Blackwell Hall and even cooler free exhibition areas, not to be missed on a grey, let alone a scorching day. Bring on hot Wednesday!

25/05/2026

What Spring in Oxford has felt like this May, the Medieval edition.

Featuring:
Bodleian Library Arch. B b.19
Bodleian Library MS. Douce 211, fol. 019r
Bodleian Library MS. Douce 313, fol. 004v
Bodleian MS. Douce 371, fol. 113v
Bodleian Library MS. Canon. Bibl. Lat 11 fol. 432v
Bodleian Library MS. Canon. Ital. 21, fol. 002v

All available on Digital Bodleian

24/05/2026

ℹ️ Spring Bank Holiday: our libraries remain open and services operate as normal, except the Bodleian Healthcare Libraries. The Weston Library will close at 5pm. Check individual libraries for details: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/libraries

23/05/2026

Inspired by John J. Audubon’s Birds of America, one of the most famous and most valuable books, James Freemantle, the Bodleian Printer in Residence 2025–26, is working on a project, creating a birdwatcher’s notebook referencing some of the better known pages from the Audubon. The book will record so-called ‘vagrant birds,’ those sighted outside their normal range. To see the original Birds of America, visit our free exhibition Wonder of Birds in the Weston Library.