The Bodleian

I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, nor to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library.

That's the oath I had to recite in order to get my reader's card for the Bodleian.

Every college at Oxford has its own library, but the Bodleian is the main research library for all of the colleges. There are three main buildings: the Weston Library, which is new and houses special collections, the Radcliffe Camera, and the Old Bodleian.

This is the entrance to the Old Bodleian. That jolly-looking fellow is the Earl of Pembroke, who was Chancellor of the University of Oxford in the 17th century. Thomas Bodley, who rebuilt the library in the late 16th-early 17th centuries after it had been stripped and abandoned during the Reformation, has to settle for the plaque over the doorway. And of course having the library named for him.