New Bodleian: Making the Weston Library

In 2010, with a bequest from the Garfield Weston Foundation, the Bodleian Library and the London firm Wilkinson Eyre Architects began to move forward with plans to refurbish the New Bodleian. Having served the community for seventy years, the New Bodleian housed more than three million books and manuscripts and was listed as a site of historic interest. Now, the stately building on Broad Street would preserve its façade while gaining updates to meet modern research needs.

New Bodleian: The Making of the Weston Library tells the story of how the plans for the new Weston Library—as the New Bodleian is now known—were realized, describing in detail the architectural, academic, curatorial, and heritage considerations addressed, as well as the successful collaborations between clients and consultants. Among the updates introduced were enhanced public access, including new entrance spaces; redesigned reading rooms for the study of special collections; new teaching facilities; and state-of-the-art storage space for the library’s many treasures. With over one hundred color illustrations, the book sheds light on the challenges of meeting the needs of an internationally renowned, four-hundred-year-old institution in the twenty-first century.