Weston Library

File:New Bodleian Library November 2011.JPG

From 1937 to 1940, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott worked on the New Bodleian Library, in Broad Street, Oxford. It is not generally considered his finest work. Needing to provide storage for millions of books without building higher than the surrounding structures, Scott devised a construction going deep into the earth, behind two elevations no higher than those around them.{{cite book| last=Butler | first=A. S. G. | url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/olddnb/35987 | title=Scott, Sir Giles Gilbert | work=Dictionary of National Biography | publisher=Oxford University Press | accessdate=22 June 2012}} {{subscription required}} His biographer A. S. G. Butler commented, "In an attempt to be polite to these – which vary from late Gothic to Victorian Tudor – Scott produced a not very impressive neo-Jacobean design". A later biographer, Gavin Stamp, praises the considerable technical achievement of keeping the building low in scale by building underground, but agrees that aesthetically the building is not among Scott's most successful designs.{{cite book| last=Stamp | first=Gavin | url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35987 | title=Scott, Sir Giles Gilbert (1880–1960) | work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography | publisher=Oxford University Press | accessdate=21 June 2012}} {{subscription required}} Nikolaus Pevsner dismisses it as "neither one thing nor the other".{{cite book|last= Pevsner |first= Nikolaus |author2=Jennifer Sherwood | year= 1974|title= Buildings of England Volume 45: Oxfordshire | location=Harmondsworth | publisher= Penguin | isbn=0140710450 | page=253 }}

The building was constructed of Bladon stone with Clipsham dressings and was opened by King George VI.{{cite book | title=The Encyclopaedia of Oxford | publisher=Macmillan | chapter=New Bodleian Library | year=1988 | page=269 | isbn=0-333-39917-X | editor-last=Hibbert |editor-first=Christopher |editor-link=Christopher Hibbert }} The Rockefeller Foundation donated 60% of the £1 million cost for the new library building. It included administrative and reading rooms, together with an 11-storey bookstack, three of which are underground. This was connected with the original Bodleian Library underground by a conveyor belt system for books. It is still possible to walk underground between the Radcliffe Camera and the new library building.

In the early 21st century, the building was rebuilt internally to the design of WilkinsonEyre behind its original façade to provide improved storage facilities for rare and fragile material, as well as better facilities for readers and visitors.Oxford University Library Services: “[http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/buildings Buildings Update]”, accessed 10 February 2007. See also [http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/about/buildings/new_bodleian New Bodleian], accessed 2009-12-28. It reopened to readers as the Weston Library on 21 March 2015.{{cite web| title=Weston Library opens to academics after £80m revamp | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-29384945 | work=BBC News | publisher=BBC | location=UK | date=29 September 2014 | accessdate=1 October 2014}} Richard Ovenden (Bodley's Librarian) awarded the Bodley Medal to Professor Stephen Hawking and Sir David Attenborough as part of the official opening ceremony.

The transformed library has been generally well-received, being described as a "hey presto moment for the city" by The Independent newspaper.{{cite web| url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/oxfords-new-bodleian-library-has-had-a-radical-modernist-makeover-10109194.html | title=Oxford's New Bodleian Library has had a radical modernist makeover | first=Jay | last=Merrick | date=15 March 2015 | accessdate=29 April 2016 | newspaper=The Independent | location=UK }}

In July 2016, the building was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize for excellence in architecture.{{cite news| title=Damien Hirst gallery and underground house among Riba Stirling Prize nominees | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36781981 | work=BBC News | date=14 July 2016 }}

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File:Weston Library Exterior by John Cairns 20.3.15-67.jpg|The Weston Library main entrance on Broad Street

File:Weston Library Blackwell Hall by John Cairns 6.7.15-61.jpg|The Blackwell Hall inside the library

File:Weston Library exterior by John Cairns 6.7.15-3.jpg|External view of the gift shop

File:Weston Library Blackwell Hall cafe by John Cairns 6.7.15-123.jpg|View of the cafe

• Bodleian Library

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{{Commons category|Weston Library, Oxford}}

• [https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/weston Official website]

{{Libraries of the University of Oxford}}

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Category:2015 establishments in England

Category:Libraries established in 2015

Category:Library buildings completed in 1940

Category:Libraries of the University of Oxford

Category:Bodleian Library