Bodelian Destiny

I have stayed out of the Google copyright debate, as there are people infinitely better informed than I am to explain why Google is doing the right thing with Google Book Search and public domain books.

That said, I had the great fortune of touring the 400-year-old Bodleian Library at Oxford University this week, as a guest of the Director of University Library Services and the  Bodleian Head Librarian, Reg Carr. Reg has so many degrees listed on his business card they spill onto a second line, and he cuts a strikingly traditional English figure as he moves through such a hallowed institution.

Add to that where we were standing. The 'Bod' is iconic. Lofty ceilings, leatherbound volumes, carved doorways, sculpted stone. The buildings literally breathe history. The directors of the Harry Potter films looked no further than the Bod to evoke the realm of the Hogwarts.

In this context, Reg caught me off-guard. As I was gaping at the overwhelming tradition of the Bod, Reg spoke with unmitigated passion about the positive impact of the Oxford-Google Digitization Project.

As he described it, the original bequests and gifts that established and refurbished the library were specifically conditioned upon the Bodleian becoming the library for the world, not just Oxford. This aim has always stood in sharp contrast to the Bodleian's well published rule that no volume can ever leave the libary nor be lent under any circumstances. (Even Oliver Cromwell was denied a request to remove a book.)

By digitizing the materials at Oxford to be shared on the Internet, Google is helping the Bodleian Library finally fulfill its mission of becoming library to the world.

I have to say, a variety of folks have written about this subject and I continue to enjoy the discussion. However, when you are standing there among the aged stone and creaky timber, in a building hundreds of years old, and one of the most revered librarians in the science tells you that the Google project is the most exciting aspect of what is going on at the Bodleian, it is hard not to be moved.

 

Comments

[Richard]

Hi Chris - I caught you piece at the Siad Business School, it was great, I could have listened to you all day. Thanks for doing it.

Just one little thing ... the picture on your blog, for this entry, says it's the Bodelian Library - it's not, its another library called the Radcliffe Camera. The Bodelian is right by there though. (OK, technically, the Radcliffe Camera is served by the Bodelian Library, so sue me I'm a pedant.)

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