The University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries has reached a significant milestone, with the millionth digitised version of an item held in its collections now having been uploaded for free public access anywhere in the world.

Launched in 2015, the Digital Bodleian website is a free resource providing unfettered access to a vast array of items housed in the institution’s wide-ranging collections.

The digital archive of images has steadily grown throughout the six years since its launch, with an original notebook belonging to poet Jenny Joseph, a former student at St Hilda’s College, now having become the one millionth item digitised and made available for public access.

“Whether you are a student, a researcher or someone who has a personal passion, we are delighted to be able to make our collections, built up over the last 400 years, for all to be able to view, download and use,” says Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian at the Bodleian Libraries.

“We invite everyone to explore the diversity, interest and sheer beauty of these manuscripts, books, archives, photographs and paintings. Many of the collections we have digitised were gifted to the Bodleian, and the costs have often come from generous donors and funding bodies who share our desire to make these materials widely available.”

Having blazed a trail by digitising content as far back as the early 1990s, the Bodleian Libraries was the first library outside the USA to partner with Google as part of their ongoing mass-digitisation programme.

You can learn more at https://advisor.museumsandheritage.com/news/one-millionth-item-digitised-made-freely-available-via-bodleian-libraries-website/.

The Bodleian Libraries and Oxford college libraries web site may be found at: https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/.