Reflections on Researching and Blogging

The title page of Shakespeare's First Folio,

one of the Bodleian Library's treasures. (image from Wikipedia)

As far as the research process goes, I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the Bodleian Library. I have found the most useful and reliable resources to be those on-line such as the Oxford University Library Services and the Bodleian Library websites, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the Gale Group Biography Resource Center and Wikipedia. The on-line resources made searching for specific keywords easier with searchable text. Although it was enjoyable to look through the State Library of Victoria's physical collection, not being able to loan them and take them home was the downside of this resource. The physical collection, part of which included History of the Bodleian Library 1845-1945 by Sir Edmund Craster and Bodleian Library in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by Ian Philip, was well worth looking at to verify the facts I had already obtained from many of the on-line resources.

The blogging experience was a lot of fun; however initially for me it did slow down the research process. I was at first, concentrating not only on learning the various aspects of blogging but also the writing of the blog posts. I found this detracted from my capacity to take in the knowledge of the subject I was researching. I felt I should have either been writing a blog or writing a research report. Once I was confident with the blogging, I swung into action with the report. I am not sure if I would set up another blog, however at least I have the experience of it should I need to use it in the future.

It was definitely an interesting activity to undertake and I will certainly look at blogs in a different light. Maybe I will even use them as a resource when researching my next subject. It would have been interesting to have read a blog by Shakespeare.

Harry Potter at The Bodley

The Divinity School (image from the BBC at http://www.bbc.co.uk/oxford/harry_potter/mainlocations.shtml)

Poppy Pomfrey treating Ron Weasley in a scene from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (image from http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/ - copyright Warner Brothers).

The Divinity School at the Bodleian Library was used in the Harry Potter films for internal scenes of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and Hogwarts Sanatorium (hospital). Internal scenes at Hogwarts were also filmed in Duke Humfrey's Library (part of the Bodleian Library) including the Hogwarts Library scenes.

Ephemera Archive

The Bodleian Library joined forces with ProQuest to start an electronic ephemera project to digitise over 65,000 items of the Bodleian Library's John Johnson ephemera collection. Ephemera collections provide a glimpse into daily life and are valuable resources to social and family historians. Born John de Monins Johnson in 1882, Johnson was a printer at Oxford University Press and the majority of his collection contains items published in Britain from the eighteenth through to the twentieth century. There are some items dating back to 1508. John Johnson was noted to have described printed ephemera: "Everything which would ordinarily go into the waste paper basket after use, everything printed which is not actually a book..."





You can find out more about the collection by watching the video of an interview with Peter White, ProQuest's Project Manager and David Tomkins, Project Manager of the Bodleian Library. (video from http://utube.com)

The project's website at http://johnjohnson.chadwyck.co.uk/marketing/about.jsp provides an introduction to the collection. Also at http://johnjohnson.wordpress.com/ is the Curator's choice: selections from the John Johnson Collection.

The Librarians

I turned my research focus on to Bodley's Librarians. There have been 24 librarians at the Bodleian Library in the past 400 years, with the current incumbent being Dr Sarah E. Thomas who was appointed in 2007. Sarah Thomas is the first woman to hold the position of Librarian at the Bodleian Library. Being American, she is also the first person born out of the UK to be appointed Librarian. She is a well-known university librarian who's position prior to the Bodley was Librarian at the Cornell University Library in Ithaca, New York State. Preceding this, she was acting Head of Public Service Collections at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. In June 2007, Dr Thomas was presented with the Melville Dewey Medal. This librarianship award is for distinguished services in the profession.

I researched the Bodleian's Librarians and other notable people who have helped shape the library's history, through the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography which the State Library of Victoria lists as part of their information database collection. You need to be a member of the State Library to access it. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is also available through many public library services.

Confirming the facts

Since my last post I have spent many hours at the State Library of Victoria. The library had some books relating to the Bodleian Library’s history between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries and I was eager to confirm some facts I had found from other sources. I also looked at a beautifully presented book on the treasures of the Bodleian Library, namely manuscripts, printed in full colour. The Bodleian Library is well known for its vast collection of manuscripts and these attract scholars to the library from all over the world.

The State Library of Victoria had a copy of a Bodleian Library readers’ manual from 1939. This was an interesting item to look at as it was quite thorough in its presentation. For example some words from the manual read, “A reader may not carry a library book from the Old Library to the Camera, nor from the Camera to the Old Library, nor to or from any Dependent Library.” The “Camera” refers to the Radcliffe Camera, a circular domed building which the library obtained for their use in 1860. Another rule reads, “No book or manuscript may be placed between the reader’s pen and the inkpot.” Why, you may ask, are pens and inkpots even allowed in such a library?

I was also excited to view a copy of a Bodleian Library exhibition catalogue on the author J.R.R. Tolkien. The library presented an exhibition to commemorate the centenary of Tolkien’s birth. The catalogue was in full colour and contained Tolkien’s own drawings and sketches relating to his holidays, life and stories.

I also viewed a copy of a librarian report on the Bodleian Library in 1882-7. This report gives a brief history of the library and it verifies what I discovered elsewhere, that the original library which the Bodleian inherited was contained in St Mary’s church and housed books chained to desks – for reading on the spot!

Library Collection Searches

Wikipedia listed external links to further research the Bodleian Library which included the Oxford Digital Library. This library provides digital resources for Oxford University. They have a large list of digital collections and I intend to view some of these in order to report on the library’s holdings.

I wanted however, to continue searching for factual information about the library and so I started with searching the catalogues at the State Library of Victoria and Libraries Australia. The State Library of Victoria had many holdings about the Bodleian Library and I have reserved some items to view over the next week. The Libraries Australia catalogue listed The University of Melbourne as holding some items that the State Library Victoria does not list. Therefore I will also be investigating those holdings this week.

The Search for anything Bodley

In my first attempt at finding information on the Bodleian Library, I conducted a non-Google search. Otherwise known as a Yahoo search – my most favoured search engine. Yahoo gave me links to the Bodleian Library’s web page at Oxford University’s website, Wikipedia and answers.com.

Some Bodleian facts.....

- Oxford scholars have dubbed the library as “Bodley” or “the Bod”
- Named after Sir Thomas Bodley (founder of the library) in 1602
- Is a legal deposit (or copyright) library and therefore can request a copy of every book published in Britain and the Republic of Ireland

Some collection facts.....

- Holds four copies of the Magna Carta
- Includes Shakespeare’s first folio
- One complete copy of the Gutenberg Bible

Becoming Research Ready

Encarta World English Dictionary’s definition of research
Research (noun) ri súrch, rée surch

Organised study
Methodical investigation into a subject in order to discover facts, to establish or revise a theory, or to develop a plan of action based on the facts discovered.

In order to become research ready, I decided to develop a plan of action prior to starting my research into the development of the Bodleian Library (pronounced /ˈbɒdliən, bɒdˈliːən/) at Oxford University.

This plan (a working document) contained the requirements of the research assignment (the task and purpose), likely resources that would help with my research, keeping track of references as my research progressed and reflections of the research process.

The plan would assist me in gaining skills in researching which ultimately would lead to discovering facts about the Bodleian Library, some of which would include its foundations and history, its historic buildings, the development of its collection, its treasures, access and copyright rules and the library as it is today.