Oxford University has an extremely rich and diverse library service provided by over one hundred libraries, making it the largest university library system in the United Kingdom. The integrated Oxford University Library Services (OULS), consists of 32 library units, including the Bodleian Library, all of which are managed as a unified organisation. The Bodleian Library has served scholars for over four centuries and its renowned collections are among the largest and best in the world. It is a major research library and has been a library of legal deposit for almost 400 years. OULS also includes libraries directly serving faculties, departments and other institutions of the university and its combined collections number more than 9 million printed items, in addition to vast quantities of materials in many other formats. The Libraries provide services to staff and students of the University of Oxford including its four divisions: Humanities; Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Life Sciences (MPLS); Medical Sciences; and Social Sciences, as well as to a large body of researchers outside the University of Oxford.

OULS is part of the Academic Services and University Collections (ASUC) Group, along with the Oxford University Computing Services, the Language Centre, the Oxford University Archives, and the University’s museums and Botanic Garden. ASUC thus includes the providers of the major academic services to the divisions, and also departments with responsibilities including, but extending beyond, the immediate teaching and research needs of the University.

The Bodleian Libraries serve over 60,000 registered readers, employs a staff of over 535, and have a budget of over £30 million. The Bodleian Library/OULS have a strong commitment to excellence, innovation, and user services. Among their initiatives are:

• The development of an ambitious digital library programme, including access to the largest collection of electronic resources in an academic library in the U.K.; participation in Google’s Book Search digitisation partnership; and creation of the Oxford Research Archive, an institutional repository;

• Transformation of its historic buildings and construction of new facilities to support the requirements of 21st century scholars and students, including wireless access; group study spaces; and seminar and teaching rooms as well as traditional reading rooms. The Libraries are planning an 8 million volume book storage facility; the renovation of the New Bodleian into a state-of-the-art special collections library and exhibition gallery; and a new Humanities and Area Studies Library at the heart of a planned £500 million Humanities campus in the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter.

• Expanded outreach to their user community, including local Oxford users and the larger community of scholars and researchers it serves. The Libraries have a user-centred service outlook and base services on user input from surveys and subject-based library committees.


More about the Bodleian, OULS and Oxford University may be found on the following web sites:

http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/

http://www.ox.ac.uk/