IV.

Buildings and Libraries

Notable amid the predominantly Gothic architecture of the university is Christ Church's Tom Quad, the largest quadrangle in the university. It houses above its gateway Great Tom, a 7-ton bell. Other famed structures are the Sheldonian Theatre, designed by the English architect, scientist, and mathematician Sir Christopher Wren and used as an assembly hall, and the domed Radcliffe Camera, used as one of the reading rooms of the Bodleian Library.

The main university library, the Bodleian, was built in the early 17th century as an extension to the university's existing 15th-century library. Its collections were established in 1602 by the English scholar and diplomat Sir Thomas Bodley, who gave the university a collection of books he had purchased in Europe. The present collection of bound volumes and manuscripts includes valuable holdings of biblical codices, Far Eastern literature, and material on British history. Like the British Library, the Bodleian is a copyright library, entitled to receive a copy of every book published in the United Kingdom.

Among several university museums is the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, with fine collections of Eastern and European art and Middle Eastern archaeology. The first public museum in Great Britain, it was founded by the English antiquary Elias Ashmole and was opened in 1683.

Books were first printed for the university in 1478, soon after William Caxton printed the first book in England. Today the Oxford University Press annually publishes hundreds of distinguished books of scholarly and general interest, including the renowned Oxford English Dictionary (see Dictionary).

Reviewed by: University of Oxford