NEWSLETTER Bodleian Libraries Winter 2012/13 and Summer 2013 UNIVERSITY of OXFORD SARAH THOMAS to LEAD HARVARD LIBRARY
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Bodleian Library Friends’ NEWSLETTER Bodleian Libraries Winter 2012/13 and Summer 2013 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD SARAH THOMAS TO LEAD HARVARD LIBRARY r Sarah Thomas was the first woman greatest libraries while making it more Dand the first non-British citizen to accessible and sharing its riches more widely. hold the position of Bodley’s Librarian in For all of this and much more, we owe her the Bodleian’s 400-year history. Last summer a great debt of gratitude’. she left the Bodleian Libraries to take a post Dr Thomas responded: ‘I am excited to of the Vice President for the Harvard Library, be returning to Harvard, where I got my which is the largest academic library system start filing catalogue cards four decades ago. in the world, with more than 70 libraries and It will be a rare privilege to work with col- approximately 18 million volumes. leagues there to develop a common vision At the farewell reception the Vice- for excellence and to creat e services that Chancellor of Oxford University, Professor enable us to share Harvard’s unparalleled Andrew Hamilton, said: ‘Sarah Thomas has resources effectively across the university and been an outstanding steward of the Bodleian with the wider world. And after more than Libraries, overseeing with vision, energy, six years of transatlantic commuting, I will and commitment a process of major change be able to unite my family in Massachusetts, and innovation. With the assistance of an where I grew up. excellent team, she has brought about the ‘My time at Oxford has been extraordi- construction of the new book storage faci- narily full and very rewarding: serving as lity in Swindon and the transfer of some Bodley’s Librarian has been both a delight nine million books, journals, maps, and other and an exceptional privilege. I am grateful to archival materials; an £80 million visionary my wonderfully talented colleagues within transformation of the New Bodleian into the Bodleian Libraries and beyond for their the Weston Library; extensive digitization collegial support and friendship, and I am of collections; and many other significant proud of all we have achieved together. It has Dr Sarah Thomas as Bodley’s Librarian improvements in library provision for users been magical to be here in Oxford’. (image: KT Bruce) inside and outside the University. She has worked tirelessly to protect and nourish Richard Ovenden the scholarly purpose of one of the world’s Interim Bodley’s Librarian DAVID VAISEY MADE DISTINGUISHED FRIEND OF OXFORD he Distinguished Friend of Oxford tating relationships that have provided the TAward was established in 1998 as a Bodleian Libraries with transformational means of recognizing extraordinary volun- support. Mr Vaisey remains a member of the teer service to the collegiate University. Council of the Friends of the Bodleian, and David Vaisey (Exeter, 1956) has been perhaps most importantly, still serves as an made a Distinguished Friend of Oxford for active organizer and champion of Bodley’s his services to the Bodleian. Mr Vaisey has Circle, the legacy society for the Bodleian had a long career of service to the Library, that he helped to found. holding a number of positions prior to his Mr Vaisey has been happy to share his role as the 22nd Bodley’s Librarian from knowledge of the past in the most friendly 1986 until his retirement in 1996. For the and helpful way. His positive outlook has past 17 years he has been an active supporter been inspiring. The Library is immensely of the fundraising initiatives he introduced grateful for his selfless dedication to preser- when in post. He has been extraordinarily ving Oxford for future generations. generous with his time through introduc- ing the senior management to potential Richard Ovenden supporters, and being instrumental in facili- Interim Bodley’s Librarian David Vaisey, Distinguished Friend of Oxford ACQUISITIONS THE PERSONAL ARCHIVE OF WILLIAM HENRY FOX TALBOT enry Talbot is best known for his Flacheron, William Lake Price, Roger Hinvention of two photo graphic Fenton, Bisson Frères; calotypes by processes: the photogenic drawing George Bridges with his notes to (announced in 1839) and the calotype Talbot, seeking advice on the pro- (patented in 1841). Key to both were cess; unpublished scientific work and the concept of the negative and the notebooks by Talbot; rare broadsides use of paper. Talbot’s work laid the relating to Talbot’s political activity; an foundation for all subsequent photo- exercise book and childhood letters graphy up to the digital age, though that provide insights into Talbot’s for- he was more than a pioneer of photo- mative years; and Talbot’s own copy of graphy. His name endures in Talbot’s Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry curve (mathematics), Talbot’s law of All Nations, 1851: Reports of the Juries, (optics), and the talbot (physics). He illustrated with 150 calotypes. published nearly 70 works in a wide The Friends of the Bodleian have range of fields, including electricity, helped to achieve a milestone in the optics, physics, mathematics, etymol- acquisition of this archive, the last sig- ogy, philology, classics, Assyrian, and nificant portion of Talbot materia l in photography, some of which remain private hands, with a grant of £50,000. at the forefront of research today. Further grants came from the National He was a Member of Parliament for Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Chippenham, a Fellow of the Royal Fund (£1.2 million and £200,000 Society, and one of the first scholars Profile portrait of William Henry Fox Talbot. respectively). There were also many to decipher cuneiform. Collodion negative on glass, ca. 1858 private donations. The acquisition has The Personal Archive spans his already raised considerable interest, many interests and areas of scholar ship, women within a family, and of women as including a deposit of 42 largely unknown offering a wealth of manuscripts, printed artists, botani sts, linguists, collectors, and early photogenic drawings by Talbot from material, photographs, albums, and arte- practitioners of the new photographic art. the family of John Dillwyn Llewelyn. From facts that illumine the private, social, and Items of note in the archive include: early 2014 the Bodleian, in conjunction with the intellectual spheres which informed the and unique experimental photographs by department of the History of Art, will host a discoveries of this Victorian polymath. It Talbot; a photograph by Constance Talbot, Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow with research reveals how the range of scholarly pursuits bound in an album of her drawings and interests in Talbot. and the interests he shared with his family fami ly photographs by Henry, that is thought shaped his ground-breaking work. It shows to be the earliest by a woman to survive; the Dr Francesca Galligan the work of the family that supported him, family’s photographic collections, with rare Rare Books & Printed Ephemera offering examples of the educative roles of works by Frederick Scott Archer, Frédéric THE LEWIS-GIBSON GENIZAH COLLECTION he Cairo Genizah fragments are one of history of the two institutions, and it has glimpse of life in the Eastern Mediterranean Tthe greatest finds of late Victorian schol- arguably saved the collection from dispersion between the 9th and the 19th centuries. ars. The Genizah of the Synagogue of Fustat had it been auctioned and sold as individual By combining expertise and resources (Old Cairo) contained discarded pieces of items to private collectors. The purchase was in conserving, cataloguing, digitizing, and writing which for a millennium had been made possible thanks to a generous lead gift revealing the as yet little-explored contents set aside and stored in an attic rather than from the Polonsky Foundation, together of the Lewis-Gibson Collection, Oxford and being thrown out, so as to avoid desecra- with gifts from many other institutions and Cambridge will be serving the wider inter- ting the divine names. The Lewis-Gibson individuals, including a substantial contribu- ests of international academia and making Collection, comprising 1,760 fragments, tion from the Friends of the Bodleian. this cultural resource available to the public, is the largest single group of fragments to The collection’s importance cannot be as well as safeguarding it for future genera- come up for sale in this generation, and it overstated – it contains fragments which in tions. This unique collaboration relies on the is doubtful whether anything resembling it many cases are rare and sometimes unique continued support of donors. will be on the market in the coming decades. witnesses to texts in a variety of fields, The scholars Agnes Lewis and Margaret among them biblical fragments, including Dr César Merchán-Hamann Gibson acquired these manuscripts in 1896 Saadia Gaon’s translation of the Bible into Curator of Hebraica & Judaica and gifted them to Westminster College, Judeo-Arabic (Arabic written in Hebrew Cambridge. Their joint acquisition by the characters). It also contains fragments of Bodleian Library and Cambridge University liturgy, rabbinic treatises, and personal Library constitutes a pioneering event in the and commercial documents, giving a rare ‘BINSEY POPLARS’ n 10 April 2013 the Bodleian acquired Oat auction a late autograph draft manuscript of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s celebrated poem ‘Binsey Poplars’. The last known major Hopkins manuscript to have been in private hands, ‘Binsey Poplars’, was the most significant Hopkins item to have come to the market in over 40 years. The acquisition was made possible by strong financial support from a number of indi- viduals and funding bodies, including the Friends of the Bodleian, the Friends of the National Libraries, and the V&A Purchase Grant Fund. An Oxford alumnus, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) is regarded as one of the Victorian era’s greatest poets.