Bodleian Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library

The Bodleian Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library stands on 1 St John Street in Oxford. It is a circular drum of a building, its outer wall lined with a Classical frieze. The entrance hall echoes the Doric Temple of Apollo at Bassae, first dug up by Charles Robert Cockerell. The architect Robert Adam worked with Paul Hanvey to design the space. The library now holds works once kept in the Ashmolean Museum’s own library after the move in 2001. Its collections grew from four older libraries: the Ashmolean, Classics Lending, Eastern Art, and the Griffith Institute. Among the treasures are the Heracles Papyrus, a 3rd-century Greek fragment of a poem about Heracles. Over 100,000 Oxyrhynchus Papyri fragments are also kept here. The library covers Western European art since AD 1000, ancient history, numismatics, and more. It is part of the Bodleian Library group, the central university libraries. Inside, the circular hall leads to reading rooms arranged around the drum. Shelves hold books on Byzantine art, cuneiform languages, and prehistoric archaeology. The space reflects the Classical origins of many of its holdings. The building’s design links it to the Ashmolean Museum next door. Visitors find a quiet place to study works spanning centuries and cultures.