Exhibitions and Events
The Bodleian Libraries offer a range of exhibitions and events throughout the year.
Current and forthcoming exhibitions
Main exhibitions
- NOW! Crossing Borders: Hebrew Manuscripts as a Meeting-place of Cultures
8 December 2009 – 3 May 2010
Exhibition Room, Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library winter exhibition tells the story of how together Jews, Christians and Muslims have contributed to the development of the book. It illustrates the cultural exchange, the social interaction and the religious toleration between Jews and non-Jews in the Muslim and the Christian worlds during the late Middle Ages. The exhibition draws on the Bodleian Hebrew holdings, one of the largest and most important collections of Hebrew manuscripts in the world. Find out more>> - FORTHCOMING! 'My wit was always working': John Aubrey and the Development of Experimental Science
28 May – 31 Oct 2010
Exhibition Room, Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Summer exhibition will examine the intellectual world of the English seventeenth-century scientific and cultural figure, John Aubrey (1626-97). As one of the founding fellows of the Royal Society of London, Aubrey lived a rich life in the great decades of the British scientific revolution. A keen mathematician, pioneer biographer, natural philosopher and antiquary, Aubrey manifested a broad and deep range of scholarly interests, from the study of ancient megaliths to the creation of a new artificial language. The exhibition features Aubrey’s papers which are today held in the Bodleian Library.
Temporary displays
- NOW! The season for love: A collection of choice valentines
1-27 February 2010
Proscholium, Bodleian Library. Admission Free
The Bodleian February display showcases thirty eight items which illustrate how St. Valentine’s Day was marked in the nineteenth century. Part of the John Johnson Collections of Printed Ephemera, the valentines come in many forms, from exquisite creations of lace paper, silk, scraps, tinselling and artificial flowers accompanied by elaborate poetry to humble woodcuts with prosaic and occasionally insulting verses. Also on display are publishers’ and tinsellers’ stockbooks, games of love, and even a pincushion heart. Find out more>>
Opening Hours
Monday – Friday 9am – 10pm
Saturday 9am – 4.30pm
Sunday 11am – 5pm - FORTHCOMING! Indian Traces in Oxford
1-21 March 2010
Proscholium, Bodleian Library. Admission Free
The Bodleian March display explores the varied journeys of students, politicians, linguists, art critics, and poets through Oxford in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their exchanges with the University and its Libraries are revealed through photographs, letters, published works, and other archival sources from the Bodleian and the College libraries. These reflect the many surprising ways in which Indians and Britons, including Mohandas Gandhi, C.F. Andrews, Laurence Binyon, Cornelia Sorabji, and Rabindranath Tagore, interacted in the period.
The display is linked to the AHRC-funded project Making Britain: South Asian Visions of Home and Abroad, 1870-1950 (Open University, Oxford University, King’s College, London) www.open.ac.uk/arts/south-asians-making-britain
Opening Hours
Mon-Fri 9am – 10pm (1-12 March); 9am – 7pm (15-19 March)
Sat 9am – 4.30pm
Sun 11am – 5pm
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