Merton College Library

The first day of term is also the start of Libraries Week! We are happy and proud to have been serving members of Merton College and the wider community in Mob Quad for 639 years. This past year saw the donation of a collection of the works of Roger Lancelyn Green who brought myths and fables to many young readers (and who briefly worked in the Merton Library); the inaugural outreach event bringing local school children and medieval manuscripts face to face (thanks to the Manuscripts Outreach Network); and the digitization of our illuminated copy of Caxton's first edition Chaucer (watch for a post when it is ready to go online). We welcomed 1175 visitors this summer. We are looking forward to another busy brilliant year.

If you were unable to visit Merton this summer, you can still see images from our exhibition, Hebrew Books at Merton, on the Merton website. Thanks to Senior Library Assistant Emma Sillett for creating the online exhibition. http://tinyurl.com/y9l5pntv

Hebrew Books at Merton

This summer we 'retired' our full visitors' book and started a beautiful new one made by conservator and binder Victoria Stevens. It's the inside that really matters however. Leafing through the old volume I noticed the first entry was made by someone from Brno, Czech Republic and the last by a group of Merton students. In between, the entries reveal a variety of reasons for coming to Oxford or to Merton (to attend a wedding or graduation, to keep a hospital appointment, to propose marriage, to study, to have a family vacation). We're happy to welcome visitors and to share the special atmosphere of this library. All those comments and records of visits will become part of the library, as the old visitors' book will be added to the archives. There is still time to visit Merton this summer! see the website for information https://www.merton.ox.ac.uk/library-and-archives/visiting-the-library.

Visiting the historic library

This summer one of Merton’s books has returned temporarily to an earlier home for an exhibition focussing on the life and work of previous owner Prince-Bishop of Würzburg, Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn. The volume of sermons of Jacques de Vitry, printed in Antwerp in 1575, retains its distinctive binding made for Echter’s library. The alum tawed pigskin binding bears Echter’s coat of arms, and the fore-edge is stamped with the author, title, and Echter’s ownership inscription. Echter’s Hofbibliothek was plundered by the Swedish army in the Thirty Years War, and his books survive today in a number of libraries.
The exhibition, ‘Julius Echter (1573-1617). Der umstrittene Fürstbischof. Eine Ausstellung nach 400 Jahren‘ can be seen at the Museum am Dom in Würzburg until 17 September 2017. The exhibition presents the religious, social, and political situation in Franconia in the late 16th century and early 17th century.

The summer exhibition in the Merton Library celebrates the re-cataloguing of our Hebrew books onto SOLO by Dr Rahel Fronda this year. Many of them were sent to the college as gifts from Fellow Robert Huntington (c1637-1701) in 1673, while he was chaplain to the Levant Company in Aleppo. Although not large in number, Huntington's books at Merton include examples of Hebrew printing from the Ottoman empire. An example here: David Kimhi's Sefer Mikhlol, printed in Constantinople in 1532-43.

Last weekend Merton College hosted the second Teaching the Codex symposium. Thanks go to Dr Mary Boyle and Dr Tristan Franklinos for organising a great day. Thanks also to all speakers and helpers. Themes included Outreach with medieval manuscripts, pedagogical approaches to music manuscripts, teaching art history & manuscript studies, and Continental and Anglophone approaches to teaching palaeography. But don't feel badly if you missed it, because Dr Colleen Curran has produced a Storify summary of tweets during the day http://tinyurl.com/mhgqay3

Of course there was a visit to the Merton Upper LIbrary too!

Teaching the Codex II (with images, tweets) · cmcurran21 Tweets from Teaching the Codex II Conference (6 May 2017)

We're back for Trinity Term and highlighting a recent article by Seb Falk of Girten College, Cambridge. He suggests a link between a 14th-century treatise and the mid-14th-century astrolabe-equatorium which is one of the stars of Merton Library's small remaining collection of medieval astronomical instruments. Donated by fellows of the college, these instruments could be borrowed to aid in study and in making astronomical observations. Dr Falk's article appears in Sciamus vol. 17 (2016). (http://www.sciamvs.org/2016.html

SCIAMVS

Merton College is working with York Glaziers Trust to conserve our 14th-century stained glass windows and to protect them for the future. Read about the current trial of anit-UV protective glazing in Vidimus http://vidimus.org/issues/issue-105/feature/

Feature | Vidimus

If you missed it last year, now is the time to register for Teaching the Codex 2017 at lovely Merton College. More Teaching, More Codices!

Teaching the Codex 2017 Colloquium REGISTRATION NOW OPEN HERE, covering attendance, lunch, and refreshments. In order to further discussion, the format of this colloquium will vary from the 2016 format. Morning and afternoon session…

Something fun for Christmas based on this year's Merton Christmas card. Suggest what these philosphers may be saying to each other. Submit your caption here:
https://intranet.merton.ox.ac.uk/caption-competition
(MS 269)

Save the date! 6 May 2017 at Merton College Oxford.

Music in Manuscripts Panel: Speakers Dr Margaret Bent, who is an Emeritus Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. Dr Eleanor Giraud, of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick. Follow her on Twitter here.…

This term's History of the Book Group seminar focusses on library history but not medieval.
Prof Lydia Wevers will talk about The Lives of Books, looking at material evidence of reading in the books from a sheep station library in New Zealand.
30 November, 5pm, Merton College Oxford
All welcome,but please RSVP to [email protected]