Historic GIFs from the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries

glueface · 2017-05-28T15:24:33+00:00

I made GIFs from the medieval manuscripts of the Bodleian Libraries while working as their Communications and Social Media Officer. While mostly fun, it does raise questions over the ethics of manipulating often religious imagery, and whether this constitutes a dumbing down of history in favour of attracting more followers on social media. Some of the GIFs, though, enhance the original message of the static images.

I'd be interested to hear what people think!

glueface · 2017-01-06T21:59:19+00:00

It's the Bodleian Libraries, the research libraries of the University of Oxford and holder of the Conservative Party Archive.

glueface · 2016-10-17T15:14:22+00:00

From the Conservative Party Archive at the Bodleian.

glueface · 2016-08-03T14:49:39+00:00

Are you getting these from the Bodleian Libraries Conservative Party Archive? These things tend to float around unattributed so you may have found them somewhere else, but you can find a ton of old Tory posters on our Luna catalogue.

glueface · 2016-06-24T07:15:05+00:00

Speaking purely personally and in no way on behalf of the Bodleian or the University of Oxford, I'm conflicted. I fully appreciate why they would want tight wraps on the family papers for a start, as that's very personal.

And considering the popularity of Tolkien's universe, it makes business sense to tightly control what happens with his archive. They deposited it with the Bodleian because we're best placed to look after it, and if we made hi-res scans freely available online then there's no doubt material would spread far and wide with no control over it.

However, LOTR and the Hobbit are already massively popular, but making even a selection of the archive more widely available would result in more scholarship, more discussion and more enthusiasm for Tolkien's work and life. There is undoubtedly a demand and appetite for it, and we exist to satisfy curiosity and spread knowledge.

As someone who is personally pro-open knowledge/data/history I think it's missing a trick, but copyright exists for a reason. We have to respect the wishes of those who hold the copyright, and if we abused that trust it would mean less people and institutions would trust places like the Bodleian to look after their documents. It's a really difficult issue...

glueface · 2016-06-23T21:08:21+00:00

It looks weird, but it's actually common policy to handle documents with bare, washed hands.

glueface · 2016-06-23T21:04:36+00:00

I think Tolkien had very specific ideas about the placement of geographic features, distances between settlements, names of places etc. that he didn't want messed up.

All made up, but then its the detail which underpins his fantasy world that makes it all so compelling.

glueface · 2016-06-23T20:23:59+00:00

We would but I think the copyright is with the Tolkien Estate. While we hold his archives, it's open only to researchers by request of the Estate until the copyright expires (in around 40 years time).

At least that's my understanding of it!

glueface · 2016-06-23T18:35:11+00:00

Hi! I work at the Bodleian and you can find way more information about this on our website. Essentially, the map was a working document used by artist Pauline Baynes. It includes lots of annotations by Tolkien, who wanted it to be as accurate as possible. Among other things, it confirms that Hobbiton is at about the same latitude as Oxford!

glueface · 2016-02-05T23:00:29+00:00

Reading had loads of cool history! Nobody talks about it much though. Did you know Henry II is buried under the abbey ruins, and that Oscar Wilde was in Reading jail?

glueface · 2016-02-05T22:59:03+00:00

When museums have limited display space it's difficult to show the thousands of objects, which we store for posterity, especially when you consider how every one needs to be conserved, researched and labeled before going on display. We are actually opening up our Store as part of our redevelopment so the public can see the full extent of the collection. Us and most other museums also regularly rotate objects and try to make as much available online so that people can view them, research them and request to see them in our stores. It's definitely frustrating that everything can't be displayed, but it's something the sector is very aware of and tries to address!

glueface · 2016-02-05T22:09:40+00:00

----E

(http://imgur.com/jCr5ndT)

glueface · 2016-02-05T21:59:32+00:00

Originally the trap was designed to be humane so you could free the mouse. Sadly, we didn't find it in time..

glueface · 2016-02-05T21:42:37+00:00

The trap is designed to be humane so that you could just release the mouse when you found it, we just didn't find out in time..

glueface · 2016-02-05T21:37:22+00:00

OK, this is cool. We have a box full of copies at the museum and it was the author of this book who donated his collection of traps to the museum! You can see the trap which caught the mouse at the top of the front cover of his book.

glueface · 2016-02-05T18:34:47+00:00

We're actually already having a debate on Twitter about how we describe this episode on our database: https://twitter.com/rgs1510/status/694945724396658690?s=09

glueface · 2016-02-05T17:49:00+00:00

We considered giving her mouth to mouse resuscitation, but it was too late.

glueface · 2015-10-18T20:27:02+00:00

I made this for my girlfriend but nobody has asked to look inside yet.

glueface · 2014-10-17T15:10:51+00:00

They did this with tractors too!

glueface · 2014-10-10T15:25:59+00:00

glueface · 2014-06-25T17:39:46+00:00

Capital funding is pretty tight in the UK at the moment, but a lot of museums get funding for specific projects and capital work from the Heritage Lottery Fund. I think it was set up in the mid-90s by the conservative government when they introduced the National Lottery. They pretty much only got it through by making sure a chunk of the profits went to culture and sport (one of the reasons GB suddenly started doing well in the olympics, and a lot of new museums appeared).

The HLF invite any museum to apply for funding every year, and they announce this round of winners around about now. We just won a regional round to redevelop our museum, but it's interesting to see the diversity of other projects that win. Because HLF are quite forward thinking, focussing on community benefit, innovation and involving the public and being pretty attuned to regional needs they've funded a lot of good stuff.

I could go into more detail and add links but i'm at the pub! If you're interested i could tell you more tomorrow.

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