Richard Ovenden
@richove
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Bodley's Librarian 25th @bodleianlibs ; Head of Gardens, Libraries, Museums @uniofoxford . OBE. Fellow @BalliolOxford FSA, FRSA, FRHistS, FRSE President @dpc_chat
Oxford
Joined May 2008
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Destroying these originals is a seriously bad idea. Digitization expends one form of access but destruction of originals would end another form. The cost of storage of originals, & the cost of digital access should be regarded as part of the infrastructure of an open society.
Are you a history or ancestry enthusiast? We’re proposing to digitise millions of wills dating back to the 1800s, making them easier for the public to access.
Take a fascinating look into our storage archive in Birmingham and have your say:
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Amid the horror of the Holocaust, I'd like to pay tribute to the Jewish librarians & archivists who risked & lost their lives to preserve their culture, & serve their communities. Khakl Lunski, librarian of the Strashun Library in Vilna, murdered 6 Oct 1943
#HolocaustMemorialDay
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For crying out loud
@IrishTimes
, these manuscripts
@bodleianlibs
were not 'gathering dust for centuries'. We have preserved & made them available, so that scholars could use them! Really bored of these lazy journalistic cliches about libraries & archives.
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On his birthday I give you a box of JRR Tolkien’s pipes. One was exhibited in our ‘Tolkien: Maker of Middle Earth’ exhibition in 2018
@bodleianlibs
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The
@bodleianlibs
opened on this day in 1602. We have changed a lot in 420 years but remain true to our core mission: preserving knowledge and making it broadly accessible, in Oxford and beyond!
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I am really happy to share the news that I shall be adding to my duties as Bodley’s Librarian
@bodleianlibs
, with strategic responsibilities as Oxford University’s Head of Gardens, Libraries & Museums. I’m officially GLAM!
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Feels more than little weird to close up
@bodleianlibs
this evening. We may have shut our ancient wooden doors for a while but we have digital collections and services aplenty!
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Huge congratulations to
@simon_schama
on his Hon D.Litt conferred at today’s Encaenia. Such a contribution to scholarship, the world of letters, and to the cause of civilised democracy. He shows us what a scholar can achieve in the public sphere!
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The vicious cyberattack on
@britishlibrary
is a national outrage – posing huge challenges for our national library. I argue in this Opinion piece in
@EveningStandard
that government should be properly funding their complex recovery programme.
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Prouder than I can say to have been made an Honorary Doctor of Letters by
@durham_uni
, who gave me my start and inspiration in the world of libraries & archives. Thank you!
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Today is a good day: we celebrate! OTD 1602
@bodleianlibs
opened, rebuilt after a period of destruction: a place where knowledge, culture & science is valued & preserved, where students, scholars & communities from all over the world are welcomed to create new knowledge.
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On the eve of an election when none of the party manifestos take libraries seriously, I make a plea in
@FT
for placing libraries (especially public libraries) at the heart of rebuilding what has been broken over the past 14 years in our public life.
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My office
@bodleianlibs
has been completely shrouded in scaffolding for months, so this is the first time I have been able to enjoy this view of the Sheldonian and Broad Street (and my own
@BalliolOxford
in the distance) since August. Not too shabby …
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What a tragedy - 175 years ago MPs were using the case of Birmingham to argue for laws to establish free public libraries in the UK. Here we are now allowing this system to decay. We need a national libraries policy. We need a Minister for Libraries to stop and reverse the decay.
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Happy birthday
@bodleianlibs
which opened on this day in 1602. We’ve come a long way since then in our mission to preserve and share knowledge!
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It lives! I couldn’t restrain myself & ripped open the parcel sent from
@johnmurrays
with copies of
#Burningthebooks
. The team have made a wonderful book: thank you so much! (esp to production manager Caro Westmore & of course my wonderful editor
@LaycockGeorgina
)
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View from my office window
@bodleianlibs
today - cold and sunshining but streets sadly (but appropriately) quiet.
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A big thank you to all the kind souls who have sent congratulations to me today on hearing of my OBE. I am still bewildered, but also delighted to have this honour bestowed upon me. I accept it as a proxy for all librarians and archivists 1/4
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We are living in an age where knowledge is under attack every day. My anger at the destruction of the Windrush landing records inspired me to write this book.
I'm delighted to officially announce and share the cover of Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack.
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On my early morning walk I stumbled upon a beautiful book by the wonderful photographer
@FranMonks
, left by
#ibelieveinbookfairies
! It is the catalogue of her show
@NPGLondon
#holdstill2020
which is published today! It documents our nation during the pandemic, captured via zoom.
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A classy way to leave her role at Cambridge from
@wmarybeard
. Her decision to support classics students from under-represented groups is typical of her. A great example of how to give back!
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One of the great privileges of my life was to know Christopher Tolkien: a great scholar & writer, his literary relationship with his father was unique in the world of letters. Like Thorin Oakenshield, he goes 'to the halls of waiting, to sit beside my fathers'.
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Twenty years ago next month I took up the post of Keeper of Special Collections
@bodleianlibs
. I was lucky to have the opportunity to help acquire some amazing materials to join our collections. I am going to share twenty of these with you over the coming days. 0/20
#Bod20
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We must NEVER forget that on this day in 1992 the National Library of Bosnia & Herzegovina in Sarajevo was destroyed by Serb militia besieging the city. No other buildings were hit that day, the Library was the deliberate target: to eradicate the past.
#Burningthebooks
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'Wherever they burn books, they will also, in the end, burn human beings.' (Heinrich Heine, 1823)
Missouri Republicans at a literal book burning. They think flamethrowers should be legal but history books should be destroyed.
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Strong piece by
@robbieegrif
on the impact of the
@britishlibrary
cyber attack. The impact is also keenly felt by other libraries in the UK & Ireland as BL a crucial information node. The govt must fully fund the recovery, now.
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Strangely, I seem to have turned 60 today. Spending it with my incredibly wonderful family in Cornwall where I have been coming for … 60 years! Thanks to my amazing colleagues
@bodleianlibs
for the highly amusing birthday card!
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We mark 700 years of a University Library at Oxford with a free conference on the past, present & future of libraries in society, 16-18 Sept. Speakers inc
@DrDavidRundle
@shoshanazuboff
@SandriCollins
@CamUniLibrarian
@EricKlinenberg
@mrustow
@ABevilacqua7
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I am completely stunned (but incredibly happy) to find
#Burningthebooks
on this list, alongside such brilliant books by historians who I admire so much. So pleased that the crucial role that libraries & archives fulfil for society is being recognised.
#WolfsonHistoryPrize
2021
We are delighted to announce the
#WolfsonHistoryPrize
2021 shortlist, recognising the best historical non-fiction writing from the past year.
Congratulations to all the nominees!
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A must for all medievalists, here is the late great Richard Sharpe’s Lyell lectures (
@bodleianlibs
) brought out in print by Dr James Willoughby and published by my colleagues
@BodPublishing
. It was a privilege to work with Richard, and I feel his loss still today.
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Happiest email I have received in a long time! Honoured to have been elected to a Fellowship
@RoyalHistSoc
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So happy to see this in
@TheTLS
! Applications for our Visiting Fellows programme
@bodleianlibs
are once again open: with some new Fellowships added this year (eg on Women’s History). Come and be part of our scholarly community!
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At the end of a really busy week, I am once again abso-flipping-lutely proud of my colleagues
@bodleianlibs
who are pulling out all the stops to re-start our Scan-and-deliver service next week. So I went to visit the sites to make sure they were SAFE for staff to come back 1/7
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My Dad is the young lad on the left of this image - with his parents and siblings. He would have been 101 today! He and his family led a hard life - he tried his best so that my brother and sister and I would have it easier. We did. Happy birthday Dad!
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My wonderful colleague Chris Fletcher has masterminded a series of keepsakes (Biblio-beer-mats?) printed at our very own
@theBroadPress
called ‘What is a Library?’ Some of our friends
@bodleianlibs
have contributed their thoughts. Such as
@Elif_Safak
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Posted in solidarity with fellow librarians and archivists in many states of the US, and in Ukraine. Libraries and archives are essential infrastructure for democracy.
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This image of what of feels like to be Head of Gardens, Libraries and Museums at Oxford University was captured by
@william_whyte
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Our abso-flipping amazing colleagues
@bodleianlibs
have scaled up our digital offering real quick. ‘Scan-and-deliver+’ didn’t exist a week ago. Yesterday it handled 200 requests.
#KeepOxfordreading
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Arrival of bound proofs - but still hard to believe it is real! A time to shout out to production managers, copy editors, proof readers, designers, and indexers. Feel lucky to work with very talented people on
#BurningtheBooks
@johnmurrays
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My mum and dad were married 75 years ago this weekend. Their wedding reception was in the upstairs room in the Alma pub in Deal. My Dad is no longer with us but my mum is still going strong.
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‘Every school should have a library’: couldn’t agree more with
@PhilipPullman
on the library as the most important room in the school - and the librarian as a crucial person for opening horizons of ideas and knowledge in young people.
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Amazing news
@bodleianlibs
! Thanks to the generosity of the Kohn family & Acceptance in lieu scheme we have been given the autograph MS of Bach’s cantata for Ascension Day. Be inspired by the hand of one of the greatest minds to walk this earth.
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The events of the last few days with Trump and Johnson show how archives & records remain a key part of the infrastructure of democracy. Dont mess with archives (or archivists) especially if you are a populist, authoritarian, truth-denying politician.
#Burningthebooks
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'The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth' (Orwell, from 1984). Listen to
#Burningthebooks
: A history of knowledge under attack (
@BBCRadio4
#Bookoftheweek
, 31 Aug-4 Sept) to learn how libraries & archives have helped society 'cling to the truth'.
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I am SO a proud of my team
@bodleianlibs
who had to deal with this. Calm, swift and highly professional. Taking care of other readers, and our amazing buildings, and now cleaning up fast before the damage sets in.
An unusual Oxford sight: the Radcliffe Camera being hosed down after today’s Just Stop Oil protest.
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Thank you
@GuardianBooks
@ObsNewReview
for making
#Burningthebooks
your Book of the Day. Reviewer Rachel Cooke really gets it: 'By learning what was lost, and how, and why, we come to see how vitally indispensable libraries and archives are'.
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Christmas in Oxford wouldn’t be Christmas without standing in the cheese queue for an hour …
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We must be mad, as a nation to ruin our powerful public library system as we are doing - once the envy of the world. Read this powerful piece from
@Sathnam
My dad couldn’t read but he took us to the library. Now it’s gone | The Times Magazine
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Never underestimate the power of libraries and librarians in fighting back against the destruction of knowledge. ‘Our mission is crucial’: meet the warrior librarians of Ukraine
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In his review in
@ST_Culture
Christopher Hart has a go at me for not criticising 'campus activists' for 'pulling down statues'. I dont do this because they arent destroying knowledge. Unlike, say, shelling the National Library of Bosnia with incendiaries in 1992. 1/2
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Give me a break. Owning books is now a smug middle class thing? It isnt. But you could always use a public library, and, you know, return the books for others to read ....
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We must never forget what happened at Srebrenica 26 years ago. And never forget that human genocide was preceded by a cultural genocide of libraries and archives, large and small across Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in Kosovo. 1/3
On this day in 1995 , as Serb forces entered the UN safe area of Srebrenica, they proceeded to murder over 8,372 Bosniak-Muslims in the course of a few days.
Today we remember the innocent taken simply because of their ethnic and religious identity. We vow to never forget.
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To celebrate
#Bloomsday
(as I’m in Dublin) here’s me holding a book Joyce read
@MarshsLibrary
, and refers to in Ulysses: ‘Nor in the stagnant bay of Marsh's library where you read the fading prophecies of Joachim Abbas.’ (ie Joachim of Fiore) Fabulous to hold it!
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Still get enormous pleasure in seeing my writing on the printed page (thank you
@ftweekend
)
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I have an op-ed in today's
@ft
in which I argue for the societal value of preserving information, using Windrush, web-archiving, & Legal Deposit as case-studies: The Windrush scandal reminds us of the value of archives via
@financialtimes
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Today is
#WorldLiteracyDay
& I must shout out for the vital role libraries play in supporting literacy. I have a huge debt to Deal Public Library, in the town where I grew up. It opened up new worlds to me. We must treasure libraries - places of learning for all.
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The tragic irony of this appalling act won’t be lost on the readers of my
#Burningthebooks
Exclusive:
Israeli soldiers set fire Aqsa University [
@AqsaUniversity
]’s library in Gaza City and took pictures of themselves in front of the flames.
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A year ago today we had to close our reading rooms, in the teeth of the first wave of Covid-19. My brilliant colleagues
@bodleianlibs
rapidly shifted our operations to digital, developing amazing services at scale to
#KeepOxfordreading
. They have been simply superb. So proud.
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On
#HolocaustMemorialDay2023
I remember the Paper Brigade - a group of librarians, archivists, scholars & poets who risked their lives to save books & documents from the libraries & archives of Vilnius in Lithuania, & now at
@yivoinstitute
& National Library of Lithuania
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I'm bored of hearing pieces like
@BBCRadio4
's
#Today
prog, going on abt collections 'languishing' in archives. Preserved. Saved for future.
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Although Bodley's Librarian came to a shockingly nasty end in tonight's episode of
#Endeavour
- Deguello, I can confirm that rumours of my demise have been exaggerated.
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In the process of refreshing the Oxford Text Archive's website, a banner was recently put in place, containing unsuitable messages, for which we apologise. These do not reflect the views of
@bodleianlibs
, & we have taken the website down while we address this issue internally.
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Cannot tell you how delighted I am that we can announce this!
Some of the earliest photographs ever made are now secure for the future.
Thanks to the generosity of a private individual, an important collection of images by William Henry Fox Talbot are being placed on long-term loan at the Bodleian Libraries.
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V important judgement in favour of
@allthecitizens
who are challenging the government’s conduct of policy-making at Ministerial level using technologies that are not subject to FOI and ultimate retention as public records.
Cabinet policy obliges ministers to delete WhatsApp messages
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Always great to be back at our amazing Collections Storage Facility at Swindon! Thanks to the team there for keeping our collections
@bodleianlibs
very secure and for keeping our readers happy with deliveries of books.
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It is interesting to see Dominic Cummings emerge as a digital archivist. These messages are public records: not just those that disappeared, but Cummings' screenshots of them too.
@iainoverton
and I have been raising this for some time now. 1/4
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My friend Tom Phillips has died. He was an unpinndownable artist: painter, sculptor, book-maker, composer, conceptualist, writer, critic, collector. He was also a great teacher and a loyal and generous friend. I miss him. His work hangs on my office wall
@bodleianlibs
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Incredibly excited to see this! Just finished the copy-edits today!!
How librarians and archivists have saved recorded knowledge against all odds from ancient Sumeria to the present day. Where would we be without our libraries - private and public - during the quarantine?
#librarytwitter
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I was admitted a Fellow
@RoyalSocEd
today, at a wonderful ceremony. The society made
@AnnieLennox
an Honorary Fellow too. Inspiring to be part of an institution devoted to ‘knowledge made useful’ (very relevant for libraries, archives & museums)
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The roof of the Rad Cam is quite a place to be - wonderful shot by my colleague Sarah Lockwood (in the course of checking the stonework)!
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Jordan College (aka
@bodleianlibs
) for the launch party for
@PhilipPullman
’s new book La Belle Sauvage
#BookofDust
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I am just starting to believe there might be a thing called summer
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