main points about my bodleian assignment

This blog is a way to tell you about my assignment. I am going to be discussing the Bodleian Library in Britain, including the Stationer's agreement, Thomas Bodley's impact on the Bodleian, Thomas Cobham and his influence on the library before it became the Bodleian, and some of the changes, materials and policies that were a part of the Bodleian in these early centuries.

My research process so far has been primarily internet based, including journals and websites. I am yet to go to research physical resources although I intend to do that this weekend.

To begin with, I will discuss the main points of my assignment;

<Thomas de Cobham>, Bishop of Worcester, began sponsored the building of the original library for Oxford university in 1320. This library, the first for Oxford University, distinctive from the colleges was housed in a room above the Old Congregation House. Sadly, it was unfinisihed when Thomas de Cobham died in 1327. It still exists today as a vestry and meeting room for the church.
The original library was superseded in 1488 by the library known as Duke Humfrey’s. In 1444 the University decided to erect a new library over the Divinity School, begun in about 1424 on a site at the northern end of School Street; this building was not finished until 1488.
In 1550, Richard Cox, Dean of the Christ Church denuded the Bodleian of its books. He acted under legislation passed by King Edward VI designed to purge the English church of all traces of Roman Catholicism.
Oxford University was quite poor at this time and couldn't rebuild the collection after this occurred. In 1556, therefore, the desks were sold, and the room was taken over by the Faculty of Medicine.
<Sir Thomas Bodley> and his influence on the Bodleian Library. He decided to '‘set up my staff at the library door in Oxon; being thoroughly persuaded, that in my solitude, and surcease from the Commonwealth affairs, I could not busy myself to better purpose, than by reducing that place (which then in every part lay ruined and waste) to the public use of students’.
<Selden End> was created in 1637 after the lawyer John Selden (1584-1654) gave a gift of 8000 books to be housed in the extension to Duke Humfrey's library.

OUT OF INTEREST

"Another tradition, still zealously guarded, is that no books were to be lent to readers; even King Charles I was refused permission to borrow a book in 1645. But the number of users should not be overestimated; in 1831 there was an average of three or four readers a day, and there were no readers at all in July. With no heating until 1845 and no artificial lighting until 1929, the Library only opened from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the winter and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the summer."