Radcliffe Science Library

The Radcliffe Science Library stands on Parks Road in Oxford, beside the University Museum. It is the main science library for teaching and research at the University of Oxford. The library shares its site with Reuben College, a graduate college that opened in 2023. The building itself has three linked parts: the Jackson Wing from 1901, the Worthington Wing from 1934, and the Lankester Room and stack built under the lawn in the 1970s. The library began as a bequest from the physician John Radcliffe in 1714. Its first home was the Radcliffe Camera, now a separate reading room for the Bodleian. A new Radcliffe Library opened in 1901 and became the Radcliffe Science Library in 1927. The building contains wood carvings by Don Potter, who studied with Eric Gill. The Hooke Library for undergraduates was later merged into the RSL in 2007. Visitors find reading rooms on the upper floors of the Jackson and Worthington wings. The Lankester Room and stack now form a teaching and research centre for collections. Parts of the building are used by Reuben College or shared spaces. The library holds every new British scientific publication as a legal deposit library. Its Grade II listed wings and carved doors remain important features of Oxford’s science quarter.