Oxford ghosts

Let me just preface this by saying that I don't write poetry.  But apparently walking home from the Bodleian in the dark does weird things to my psyche.  I jotted this down sometime in November. 
_________________________

Are there hauntings in these buildings?—

ancient effigies of stone—

where empty rooms

forgotten stairways

nooks and crannies unexplored

or turned

with whitewashed paint

to modern studies

where boys and girls

read ancient worlds

in artificial lamplight,

the warmth of dying coffee

in ceramic mugs

mismatched,

and fight to enter in

to empire

as shadows are dispersed

by rising sunlight on the river, tamed

until tomorrow

Spring ruminations from a Bodleian window

There really are not words to describe the glory of an Oxford sky
when the sun shines, and the blue is soft as summer dreams,
and the towers of All Souls gleam with half-articulated longing,
and the whole world trembles with possibility
and youthful, age-worn, promise.

Bodleian hauntings

There is a woman who haunts the Bodleian.  I see her nearly every day that I make my way to the lower reading rooms to sift through dust-covered tomes on mythology and theory (which, if I'm honest, hasn't been for a while, since I currently spend my time in the upper reading rooms exploring Old Norse sagas and related criticism).  But when I say haunts, I do mean haunts -- I could easily believe that it is only I who sees her.  She walks -- or maybe glides -- from one side of the building to the other, her eyes invariably on the book she is reading while she roams (and who but a ghost could walk and read, never lift her eyes from the page, yet never stumble, bump, or trip?), her hair in the same loose bun, day after day, that could easily have made its way from the pages of the 1800s, and her waist-cinched, ankle-length black dress billowing around her.  If she is a ghost -- a female scholar debarred from the library during her time on earth -- I suppose there are worse ways to spend eternity than perusing the eleven million volumes in the Bodleian's collection.

The Bodleian Library

There are over a hundred libraries in Oxford. Most belong to the individual colleges, and can only be used by members (for example, we can use the Wycliffe Hall library, but not the Trinity College library). Others are more widely accessible, such as the faculty libraries (there is one for every subject). You have to be a university member, and you have to register with each library individually (I'm registered with the English, Classics, History, and Theology faculty libraries) but they allow you to check books out, which is hugely helpful.

And then there is the Bodleian. The Bodleian is the only actual "university" library, and it is HUGE. Several of its main buildings are clustered in the general vicinity of the Radcliffe square (the Old Bodleian, the New Bodleian, the Radcliffe Camera, etc.), and they are constantly building on.

This library, while gorgeous and amazing (you feel like you've stepped into history when you walk through the doors) is hugely complex. There are books located in each individual portion of the library, called "reading rooms." These cannot be reserved, and must simply be found on the many shelves of glorious knowledge. The vast majority of books in the Bodleian's collection, however, are found in "the stacks." The stacks are a mysterious entity, location unknown, where literally thousands of books wait to be requested. To get a book moved from the stacks to somewhere you can actually access it, you look it up on their database, and have it requested to a specific reading room. Within a specified amount of time, your book will arrive, and you go to that room to pick it up and read it there (my reading room of choice is the lower rr of the Old Bodleian). The Bodleian does not allow books to be taken from the premises, or moved from room to room.

This, though it sounds easy enough, was really difficult to get used to. Not the system per se, but the inability to check books out. The necessity of always reading in the library. Getting your books at the beginning of the day, claiming a table (by an ancient window, overlooking the towers and spires of Oxford), having to leave your books behind every time you needed a coffee break or food (there is a coffee shop in Blackwells, a really famous bookstore across the street), and then handing them back at the end of the day (you can have them held for you, or returned to the stacks). It was especially tricky during the British Landscapes course, because the library was still on holiday hours, and closed down at 7:00pm, and wasn't open during the weekend. However, it has definitely driven home the importance of taking good reading notes. =)

One really cool thing about the Bodleian is that it was England's first copyright library. This basically means they get a copy (or can if they want) of every book published in England since 1610. This, needless to say, has made the Bodleian a world famous research library (and is the reason it's constantly outgrowing its space allotment). The library was named after Sir Thomas Bodley (1545-1613), who secured its copyright status (and left his fortune to it) after he refurbished, and reopened, the Oxford Duke Humfrey's library in 1602. The Duke Humfrey still exists within the confines of the Old Bod., and is where the forbidden section of the Hogwart's library was filmed for the Harry Potter films. If you want to see some amazing pictures, I highly recommend you search Google images for "bodleian library."

A little archaic, but I think the following poem is cool just for the realization that every book written by every English scholar, poet, or novelist will stand tribute to this creator of libraries. What a legacy!:

Most noble Bodley! we are bound to thee
For no small part of our eternity.
Th' hast made us all thine Heirs: whatever we
Hereafter write, 'tis thy Posterity.
This is thy Monument! here thou shalt stand
Till the times fall in their last grain of Sand.
And whereso'er thy silent reliques keep,
This tomb will never let thine honour sleep.
Still we shall think upon thee; all our fame
Meets here to speak one Letter of they name.
Thou canst not dye! Here thou art more than safe
When every Book is they large Epitaph.
-Henry Vaughan (1622-1695)

(the passage to Radcliffe Square)

(the Radcliffe Camera, with the University Church in the background)

(the Radcliffe Camera, with All Souls College in the background)

(the Radcliffe Camera -- the upper reading room has a reputation for looking like Bell's library in Beauty and the Beast)

(in the Old Bodleain courtyard)

(a door inside the courtyard of the Old Bod.)

(by the "Visitors May Not Pass Beyond This Point" sign in the Old Bod.)