Oxford III

Don June 6th, 2008

Today we get our Bodleian Library cards.

This is a big deal. Have you ever seen a library card that was a picture ID?

Well, the Bod [as it's known to us Oxonians] is like the Library of Congress–a copy of every book that’s published automatically goes there–but they’ve been doing it about 400 years longer than we have. And it is not open to the general public. Only those who are members of an Oxford college are allowed in. As visiting scholars at New College [one of the oldest--it seemed like a good name at the time], we qualify. There are a couple of guys standing at the door who look like refuges from Men in Black [only with bowler hats] whose job is to prevent any mere mortals from profaning the sacred precincts. But we, the true elect, may flash our cards at them, whereupon they will very obsequiously usher us in to the intellectual holy of holies. To be granted this privilege, we must first swear a solemn oath never to remove any book from the Library or to deface the same, and never to bring fire into the Library or kindle it therein.

The Bod consists of several parts. The most easily recognizable is the Radcliffe Camera, a round, domed, neoclassical edifice, which is the main reading room. The American “Shadowlands” showed Lewis working there because it was easier to shoot film in that more open space, but this was one of the movie’s many inaccuracies. Lewis would actually work in Duke Humphrey’s Library, a splendid Gothic room that is the equivalent of an American library’s rare book room. And we shall have free access to it all. [Do remember that Envy is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.]

From the Dreaming Spires,

Don

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