About Wadham Library
A calm study space where you'll find books online or in hard copy as well as facilities to help you with your studies.
Facilities
Open 24/7 the Library provides places for quiet study. Here you'll find your course books, electronic resources, scanning, photocopying and printing facilities. An attractive 'beanbag' seating area, where you can relax with a book or journal, looks out over the cloister. A discussion room, available on a drop-in basis, provides group study space for up to 16 people.
Our collections
Our lending collection comprises some 53,000 books representing all of the subjects studied at Wadham.
We keep multiple copies of many key textbooks, particularly in the sciences. Typically we buy around 1,000 books a year. As well as working from reading lists and suggestions made by tutors, we actively encourage and welcome book suggestions from our students.
Online collections
We subscribe to many thousands of electronic journals, e-books and scholarly databases, and all of these are fully available to Wadham students both while they are in College and when away from Oxford. We welcome e-book suggestions from our students.
Rare books
Our collection of older books and manuscripts acquired, mostly through donation, over the last 400 years, covers a wide range of subjects from literature to theology and the sciences. The first folio of Shakespeare’s plays along with the subsequent three folios, an 11th century Gospel book, a 13th century Paris Bible and Robert Hooke’s 'Micrographia' are among our collection.
Wadham’s Graduate Centre includes the Edwin Mok Reading Room and a library area with desk space set over two floors. Journals and specific named collections of monographs, such as some of Michael Foot's collection of books on modern political history, are stored in these areas. There is also a collection of art house films on DVD and Bluray for viewing by graduate students in the Becker Media Room..
Library history
Designed by Glasgow architects Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, Wadham Library was built in the 1970s and officially opened in July 1976. Architecturally renowned, the building features brushed concrete walls and pillars and a series of half levels creating interesting sight lines across the reading rooms. Originally the library collections were housed in the Old Library within the College's foundation buildings.
Watch the video below to find out more about our history and collections.
Visiting Wadham Library
Our library staff can arrange sessions for researchers wishing to consult our antiquarian book collection. University of Oxford students can visit by appointment to view titles unavailable in other Oxford University libraries.
Please email library@wadham.ox.ac.uk, or contact the library by phone on 01865 277914 to make an appointment.