The Bodleian Libraries (BODcasts)

Richard Ballam talks about the rich collections of games and pastimes he has recently donated to the Bodleian, the subject of the display Playing with History. Playing with History celebrates Richard Ballam's donation to the Bodleian of his rich and varied collection of games and pastimes. This small selection of items from the wider collection gives us insights into the presentation of history to children, and the ways in which they were encouraged to engage with contemporary issues, such as War and Empire through game play.

A talk delivered by Andrew Green at the Anybook Oxford Libraries Conference 2015 - Adapting for the Future: Developing Our Professions and Services, 21st July 2015. In the research library of the future the provision of services, many of them new, will eclipse the traditional care of collections -- or at least the care of what is termed 'common collections'. 'Distinctive collections', though, will increase in prominence, and become the basis for new activity. Research libraries, and especially these distinctive collections, will increasingly look beyond the home institution, and beyond academia, for their future uses.

A talk delivered by Jan Wilkinson at the Anybook Oxford Libraries Conference 2015 - Adapting for the Future: Developing Our Professions and Services, 21st July 2015. Previous organisational development (strategy, structure, skills) for the University of Manchester Library has delivered some rewarding, and very necessary, results. Many old challenges have been addressed, and the Library is now enjoying a very positive profile within the University. A renewed ambition and energy emerged amongst staff during our strategic planning 2013-17, leading to a new approach to both strategy process, and implementation. We have just completed our first year of 'Leading, Challenging and Connecting'. Success in our newly stated aspirations will depend, not only on professional project management, but also on a concerted effort to increase innovation and risk-taking across the organisation. Jan will share the ways in which the Library is taking a hard look at its current culture, and plans to move the Library from good to great through creativity, liberation, and fun!

A talk delivered by Clem Brohier at the Anybook Oxford Libraries Conference 2015 - Adapting for the Future: Developing Our Professions and Services, 21st July 2015. Clem will talk about The National Archives as an organisation, and about the current activities taking place across the archives sector. He will discuss the challenges identified by the sector and how The National Archives is responding to them. He will outline The National Archives' new four-year strategic priorities and its aims to support the archives sector, as well as the challenges and opportunities faced by the digital age for the sector.

A talk delivered by Paul Cavanagh and James Kay at the Anybook Oxford Libraries Conference 2015 - Adapting for the Future: Developing Our Professions and Services, 21st July 2015. Universities face the challenge of providing high quality services which meet the demands of users to provide access to more varied resources in a rapidly changing technological environment. This is balanced against the increasing costs of resources and a political and sector-wide institutional need to manage and better account for library budgets. This talk will focus on how the University of Derby is using statistical and decision-based tools to manage and plan library resources effectively; collaborating with publishers, academics, colleagues within the Library and across the library and information sector to develop continuing best practice through evidence-based decision making.

Keynote lecture by Margreta de Grazia, (Emerita Sheli Z. and Burton X. Rosenberg Professor of the Humanities, University of Pennsylvania) for the Marginal Malone conference held in Oxford on June 26th, 2015. Introduction by Tiffany Stern, Professor of Early Modern Drama, Faculty of English, University of Oxford

What do geniuses have in common, across the arts and sciences? And how do we distinguish genius from talent? Andrew Robinson, author of Genius: A Very Short Introduction, considers (a little of) the evidence.

A lunchtime lecture by Julie-Anne Lambert accompanying the exhibition Marks of Genius: Masterpieces from the Collections of the Bodleian Libraries. The John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera is one of the lesser-known collections of the Bodleian. This talk discusses why and how was it formed, what ephemera are, and how can they contribute to our understanding of history.

Lunchtime lecture by Will Poole accompanying the exhibition Marks of Genius: Masterpieces from the Collections of the Bodleian Libraries. Henry Savile (1549-1622) founded at Oxford in 1619 the two Professorships that still bear his name, one in Astronomy, the other in Geometry. He equipped his professors with a library, which they in turn augmented down the centuries, and that library was transferred to the Bodleian itself in 1884. The Savilian books therefore comprise one of the most historically significant scientific libraries in the West.

Lunchtime lecture by Richard Mulholland accompanying the exhibition Marks of Genius: Masterpieces from the Collections of the Bodleian Libraries. Outside of the natural sciences, the work of Ferdinand Bauer (1760-1826), the pre-eminent eighteenth century natural history painter is little known. However, his botanical and zoological paintings on paper are considered to be among the finest in the world. Of particular interest is the unusual drawing and painting technique he used, recording colour information about specimens by annotating preliminary pencil sketches with numerical colour codes to be painted at a much later stage referring directly to a painted colour chart. This talk will discuss Bauer's botanical illustrations for the Flora Graeca (1806-1840), one of the most lavish Flora's ever published, the materials and techniques he used, and new research by the Bodleian's Conservation Research department to identify Bauer's 18th century palette, and recreate the lost colour chart that holds the key to fully understanding Bauer's considerable expertise as an artist.

A lunchtime lecture by Clive Hurst accompanying the exhibition Marks of Genius: Masterpieces from the Collections of the Bodleian Libraries. Some dozen items bequeathed to the Bodleian Library by Francis Douce in 1834 feature in Marks of Genius, ranging from medieval manuscripts to a panoramic print of Shakespeare's London, from Mughal paintings to a bible presented to Elizabeth I. Three works are known by his name: the Douce Apocalypse, the Douce Pliny, and the Douce Ivory. But Douce wasn't only interested in the spectacular and grand - he collected nursery chapbooks, and nursery rhymes, indeed, he edited a volume of the latter in 1810. It is this area of his collection that this talk investigates.

'Buying beauty in the Victorian period' Dr Jessica Clark looks at the Victorian beauty industry, and the transition from disapproval of artifice to a celebration of the wonders of cosmetics. Drawing on the John Johnson Collection of ephemera at the Bodleian Library, Dr Clark explains what Victorian Britons considered beautiful and considers some of the products and techniques that women, and men, used to achieve physical perfection.

Dana Josephson gives a talk for the Marks of Genius Masterpieces from the Collections of the Bodleian Libraries series.

Bibles and religious literature were an integral part of Canadian society and culture between 1830 and 1900. This period saw increased distribution of bibles and religious texts as part of a larger growth of distribution networks and a Canadian consumer culture. Religious organizations and benevolent societies played an especially important role in shaping the religious book trade in Canada, where copyright restrictions strengthened colonial print connections. This lecture describes the methods and experiences of missionaries who sought to bring Christian scripture to Canadians in the 19th century, and draws on the Bodleian's archival holdings of diaries and letters of individuals, and records of missionary societies.

In this talk Stuart Lee will look at the various texts we may call The Hobbit. Starting with the 1937 edition (on display) he will look at the changes enforced on Tolkien after he had finished The Lord of the Rings and how he coped with these.

Fourth Lunchtime lecture accompanying the exhibition Marks of Genius: Masterpieces from the Collections of the Bodleian Libraries. With Dr Dirk Obbink.

Third Lunchtime lecture accompanying the exhibition Marks of Genius: Masterpieces from the Collections of the Bodleian Libraries. With Mr David Helliwell.

Second in the Marks of Genius series, with Dr Christina Dondi

Professor Michael Suarez gives the first Lyell Lecture of 2015.

Professor Robin Wilson, author of Alice's Adventures in Numberland, gives a talk on the history of studying Mathematics at Oxford, which is as old as the University itself.

Political biographers D R Thorpe and John Campbell speak about their subjects' careers culminating in the role of Chancellor of the University of Oxford. The discussion was chaired by Lord Patten of Barnes.

In this short talk Professor Martin Ceadel, Fellow and Tutor in Politics, New College, Oxford discusses the issue of military conscription and conscientious objection during the first world war.

Dr Adrian Gregory, Fellow and Tutor in History, Pembroke College, Oxford discusses the use of propaganda by all sides during the first world war.

A conversation between Professor Sir Hew Strachan and Professor Margaret MacMillan, chaired by Professor Patricia Clavin.

Marie-Claude Felton, Royal Bank of Canada-Bodleian Visiting Scholar, gives a talk for the Bodleian Library BODcasts series

Professor Joshua Silver talks about his invention of the self adjusting spectacles.

Dr Eric Sidebottom, Retired University Lecturer in Experimental Pathology, gives a lunch time talk to accompany the exhibition 'Great Medical Discoveries: 800 Years of Oxford Innovation'.

Anna Caughey gives a lecture at the Bodleian Library looking at the varying spectrum of literature about King Arthur written for children.

Lecturer and conductor Dr Paul Coones delivers a lecture celebrating the 200th birthday of Richard Wagner. The talk is preceded by Siegried's Horn Call played by Sophie Dillon and includes the rarely performed Kinder-Katechismus zu Kosel's Geburtstag.

Judith Priestman, curator of literary manuscripts at the Bodleian library, discusses the World Book Day 2010 Tolkien exhibition, at which a selection of J.R.R. Tolkien's original artwork for The Hobbit, was on display to the public.

Chinese Artist Xu Bing gives a talk on the subject of his art and the kind of artist he is.

Art critic Brian Sewell talks to Sir Roy Strong as part of the Times Literary Festival 2013. Art historian, writer and broadcaster Sir Roy Strong has enjoyed half a century as one of the leading figures in Britain's art world. The former director of the National Portrait Gallery and Victoria and Albert Museum talks to art critic Brian Sewell about his early years before he rose to fame, which he describes in his new book, Self-Portrait as a Young Man. Strong tells of his social origins in suburban North London, his grammar school and university education, and of the development of his lifelong passion for the culture and history of England. The world he describes is one dominated by hierarchy and class up which the new 'meritocrats' like himself and Alan Bennett began to climb. It is also a time of big change as the drab London of the 1950s turns into the swinging sixties.

Giles Bergel and Andrew Zisserman from the Broadside Ballad Connections project demonstrate new image matching software that allows researchers to track images across early forms of printed literature. Visit http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/.

Professor Kathyrn Sutherland from the University of Oxford talks around the manuscripts of Jane Austen, what we can learn from them about her family life but also her writing style and techniques.

Professor Kathryn Sutherland from the University of Oxford talks about some of Jane Austen's manuscripts from the novel 'The Watsons' and what we can learn about her from these.

Alan Garner gives an illustrated lecture on the Legend of Alderley. This version of the myth of the Sleeping Hero is rooted to places on Alderley Edge in Cheshire, where Alan Garner grew up.

The earliest printers spread from Mainz in Germany where Gutenberg first had his printing house to Venice, Rome, Paris, and the Netherlands. Examples from all of these centres of 15th-century printing are found in Bodleian collections.

Special footage celebrating the launch of Talking about Detective Fiction by PD James, the latest Bodleian Library publication. PD James is donating all royalties from the hardback edition to the Bodleian and hopes it will encourage further philanthropy.

Special footage celebrating the launch of Talking about Detective Fiction by PD James, the latest Bodleian Library publication. PD James is donating all royalties from the hardback edition to the Bodleian and hopes it will encourage further philanthropy.

A short history of how the Bodleian library stores original copies of the Magna Carta and the original Wind in the Willows letters.