Radcliffe Science Library

The physician John Radcliffe died in 1714, leaving money in his will to establish the Radcliffe Observatory, the Radcliffe Infirmary and the Radcliffe Library, which was intended to contain "modern books in all faculties and languages, not in the Bodleian Library". The library's building on a site south of the Bodleian Library was completed in 1749 and is now known as the Radcliffe Camera.[1]

The scientific books housed in the Radcliffe Camera were transferred to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in 1861. A new Radcliffe Library building opened in 1901, on land next to the museum (on the corner of Parks Road and South Parks Road).[2]

In 1927, the library lost its independence, for financial efficiency becoming part of the Bodleian Library. The library took on its current name, the Radcliffe Science Library, and gained the right as a legal deposit library to receive a copy of all new British scientific publications.[1]

The library has doors with relief wood carvings[3] by Don Potter, undertaken while he was studying with the sculptor Eric Gill.[4]

With the construction of a basement in the 1970s, part of the building was used to form The Hooke Library, a (separate) science lending library for undergraduates, which was named after Robert Hooke, a scientist who worked in Oxford. The Hooke Library housed its collection in the ground floor of the Abbot's Kitchen which was originally part of the University Museum and on the staircase at the eastern end of the Jackson Wing of the RSL. The area which housed the Hooke Library collection became part of the RSL, with the ground floor of the Abbot's Kitchen transformed into a refreshment area and a training room.[1]

Until 2007, the library was a reference library rather than a lending library. During 2007 the building and collection of the Hooke Library was integrated into the RSL.[5]

In December 2018 it was announced that the premises would be used as the basis of a new non-residential graduate college of the university, Reuben College, alongside the library.[6] The library closed for refurbishment in December 2019 and reopened in October 2023.[7]

The RSL building consists of three parts, developed as expansion of the library was necessary:

1. The Jackson Wing, parallel to South Parks Road, is Grade II listed. Designed by Sir Thomas Jackson it opened in 1901. This wing currently houses parts of the RSL and formerly housed part of the Hooke Library on the staircase at its east end. It is arranged over 3 floors, all above ground, with two reading rooms and administration offices.
2. The Worthington Wing, parallel to Parks Road, was designed as an extension to the Jackson Wing in 1934 by Hubert Worthington. The wing extends to the north of the western end of the Jackson Wing and contains two reading rooms, on the first and second floors, and the library entrance hall on the ground floor.
3. The Lankester Room and Main Stack, a two-storey extension under the lawn of the museum, built 1972–5. The Lankester Room is a large reading room of the library containing the book collection. The stack contains additional storage for library materials - readers do not have direct access to this, but can request items from it.

• 
  Entrance
• 
  Desk inside the Worthington Wing
• 
  Alexander Library of Ornothology, circa 2018
• 
  Ground floor interior
• 
  Door to the rare book room carved to a design by Eric Gill in 1935. Each panel features a famous scientist.

• Hassall, T. G. (1972). "Roman finds from the Radcliffe Science Library extension, Oxford, 1970-71" (PDF). Oxoniensia. 37: 38–50. Retrieved 28 April 2011.
• Information boards, concerning the 2007 transformation

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Radcliffe Science Library.

• Radcliffe Science Library website