The Bodleian Libraries (BODcasts)

Experts discuss how the latest 3D recording technology has supported their research by revealing near-invisible markings from originals held at Oxford University Institutions The very latest in 3D recording technology has revealed near-invisible markings from originals held at Oxford University institutions. Imagery captured with this technology shows what has never before been possible to record....

Elizabeth Savage and Ed Potten. A conversation reflecting on the techniques for ascribing dates to woodblocks and prints.

Andrew Honey and Alexandra Franklin Discovering and re-discovering the uses of wooden printing blocks within a library.

Madeleine Katkov, Alex Walker and Nicole Gilroy Exploring the conservation of the fabric and content of Bodley’s Library.

Associate Professor Donna West Brett gives a lecture on the collection of photobooks donated to the Bodleian Library in 2020 by Sir Charles Chadwyck-Healey. Conveying meaning through photos alone, the photobook is a radical format that enabled the widespread dissemination of modernist aesthetics. This lecture will take a closer look at the way photobooks portray the ‘everyday’ – the familiar, the...

In this webinar, Professor Marion Turner introduces some of the themes of Chaucer Here and Now, the exhibition currently on view at the Weston Library. Focusing on manuscripts and printed books from the fifteenth century to the twenty-first, Professor Marion Turner discusses some of the ways in which readers of Chaucer have responded to and reimagined Chaucer's works. From medieval scribes to Zadi...

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales tell the story of pilgrims 'from every shires ende / Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende’. Experience these journeys, both real and imagined, through medieval manuscripts from the Bodleian collection live under the visualiser. Dr Alison Ray, archivist at St Peter’s College, and Dr Andrew Dunning, RW Hunt Curator of Medieval Manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries, will e...

Tia Blassingame introduced her work leading the Book/Print Artist/Scholar of Color Collective (aka Book/Print Collective) and shared methods for supporting and empowering BIPOC book and print artists In this lecture, Tia Blassingame introduced her work leading the Book/Print Artist/Scholar of Color Collective (aka Book/Print Collective) and shared methods for supporting and empowering BIPOC book a...

In this session, we explore what Playford’s publishing activities can tell us about how music was incorporated into different social environments in seventeenth-century English society and the role music played in peoples lives. Although The Dancing Master was one of John Playford’s best-known and most widely distributed publications, it belonged within a music-publishing portfolio that provides s...

This talk will consider how and why the frontispiece to this edition was different from those in earlier editions and place the image in relation to other images of ballroom dance bands before and after 1728. The music publisher John Playford built his success on the publication in 1651 of the first book to give tunes and dance instructions for country dances. He named it The English Dancing Maste...

Conservation Scientist Prof. Dr. Mandana Barkeshli looks at lacquered bookbindings made by Persian artisans in the 16th to 19th centuries. Persian artisans are known for their contributions to the field of bookbinding, with the lacquered bookbinding technique being one of their notable breakthroughs. This intricate technique involves multiple layers, each with their own materials, methods, and mot...

An introduction to the analysis of painted Byzantine and Japanese manuscripts by the Bodleian Libraries' new Heritage Scientist. The post of Heritage Scientist at the Bodleian Libraries was re-instated at the beginning of 2023, enabling the analysis of manuscripts in the library’s collection. The focus so far has been on Byzantine manuscripts from the 10th to 13th centuries, and Japanese scrolls f...

Daniel Meadows is a pioneer of contemporary British documentary practice. A photographer, documentarian and digital storyteller. He returns to the Bodleian library to muse on his life and archive and the power of photography. Photographer Daniel Meadows is a pioneer of contemporary British documentary practice. A photographer, documentarian and digital storyteller, he has spent his life recording...

What is queer bibliography? How does it intersect with other critical bibliographies, (feminist, Black and liberation bibliography)? How does it relate to traditional bibliographic practice? What opportunities might queer methods and approaches provide? Following the inaugural symposium Queer Bibliography: Tools, Methods, Practices and Approaches in early February 2023 at the Institute of English...

In this lecture, Matthew Kirschenbaum considers textual stability, a concern of publishers and readers since before the advent of printing, in the post-digital era. Books are not dead as was once feared. But they are not the same either. With digital processes and workflows now thoroughly integrated into the art and industry of publishing and printing them, books are altered by the post-digital mo...

Social documentary photographer Jim Mortram and photographer and publisher Craig Atkinson ponder why should we care about photography? Why take photographs? Why preserve them. Why should we care about photography? Why take photographs? Why preserve them? Social documentary photographer Jim Mortram and photographer and publisher Craig Atkinson ponder these questions and more, using their own work a...

Thomas Gravemaker explores the history of wood type printing as well as his own recent manufacture using digital design and a CNC router. Wood type has a history as long as printing itself. Thomas Gravemaker, Printer in Residence at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press during March 2023, tells the story of the materials, manufacture and use of wood type since the nineteenth century and brings this u...

Geoffrey Batchen explores the first fifty years of photography in Britain. The announcement of photography’s invention in January 1839, first in Paris and then in London, introduced a new power into British life. This new power—derived from photography’s capacity to automatically capture the images created in a camera—was soon being used for every conceivable purpose. The two exhibitions curated b...

A research collaboration between the Bodleian Libraries and the Factum Foundation The Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation is a not-for-profit organisation, founded by Adam Lowe in 2009 in Madrid. The Foundation was established to demonstrate the importance of documenting, monitoring, studying, recreating and disseminating the world’s cultural heritage through the rigorous deve...

Drawing on a detailed survey of shareholders of the Marconi in 1897 and 1900, this lecture will trace an overall profile of the diverse categories of investors who dared to back this venture through it's experimental phase to becoming commercially viable. What were the economics of radio’s invention? How did wireless communication manage to get through the costly experimental phase and develop int...

Join our experts in conversation as they consider the thinking of two great 19th century women writers exploring the boundary between human and machine Using the notebooks of Sir Humphry Davy, an influence on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and the surviving manuscripts of the novel itself, Professor Sharon Ruston will consider Shelley’s thought-process in writing and how far the Creature might be th...

Discover how cutting-edge scientific techniques are transforming our understanding of medieval manuscripts, and how book production began to recover under King Alfred and his successors

Discover the treasures that illustrate how exchanges between England and the Netherlands have shaped literature, book production and institutions such as the Bodleian itself, on either side of the North Sea.

Dr Martin Holford and Dr David Rundle explore how the Italian Renaissance led to major changes in how manuscripts were made, written and decorated in England.

Focusing on four very different maps of Oxford - each of the maps has its own tale to tell, some showing Oxford as it was; others showing Oxford as it might have been; and others how Oxford never was. This webinar will be focus on four very different maps of Oxford from the standpoint of why these maps were made. Each of the maps has its own tale to tell, some showing Oxford as it was; others show...