Study Spots

lIBrarIes:

The University’s library system is called the Bodleian Libraries. This comprises over a hundred faculty libraries, college libraries, and general libraries, including the unhelpfully named Bodleian Library or Old Bod. You can access and borrow from any faculty library, regardless of your subject. And don’t forget your college library! Oxford has a lot of libraries. You’ll probably find your own favourites, but we’ll just highlight a few, from the famous to the quirky:

• Radcliffe Camera: Oxford’s most iconic library, in Radcliffe Square in the heart of the city. Beautiful Palladian architecture. Always busy with patchy Wi-Fi, but please don’t leave Oxford without visiting. • Old Bod: As the name suggests, the oldest of Oxford’s libraries. Large, well-equipped reading rooms with beautiful views. Also contains the Duke

Humfrey’s Library, a library with so many rules it will remind you of Hogwarts’ restricted section. But that’s because it is the Hogwarts library.

• Glink: A barren, inhuman, seemingly endless void buried underneath the

Radcam. Ever wondered what it’s like inside a Soviet Bunker? Wonder no longer. Only upside is that there’s nothing to distract you. • Taylorian: Probably Oxford’s prettiest library on the inside. The best part about being a language student, but don’t let them have it all to themselves. Is it a library or an elaborate maze? Who knows? Good luck finding your way out!

• Social Sciences Library (SSL): Huge, sterile and unrelentingly functional. Somehow only the second ugliest library on Manor Road. You can thank the law library for that. Has a cheap coffee shop upstairs, and you can always find a seat.

Oxford libraries have unimaginably huge budgets, so you will be able to request your college or faculty buy books which are not immediately available. The Bodleian is a legal deposit library, so can request a copy of pretty much any book published in the UK. The University library system consists of more than 13 million books, most of which are housed in a dystopian warehouse in Swindon and can be driven into Oxford upon request in white Bodleian Libraries

Not all libraries allow you to borrow books. Some are reference only, but you should be able to find a copy of most books somewhere. Failing that, more texts than you’ll know what to do with are available online, and more are being added all the time.

You can easily find resources through the university search engine, Search Oxford Libraries Online, (SOLO, an acronym which reflects the loneliness of endlessly browsing SOLO). You can search resources held by the Bodleian Libraries, college libraries and any other department and faculty libraries. Through SOLO, you can find out which libraries have the books you are looking for, and place reservation requests. You can also find electronic resources here.

other studY sPaCes:

• Cafes - from Pret to the Missing Bean to Jericho. Feed that caffeine addiction and meet that essay deadline at the same time.

• Common Ground Cafe/The Oxford Hub - a popular social enter-

prise/co-working space in Jericho.

• Green spaces - Uni Parks and Christ Church Meadow are particularly pretty, and you can get into pretty much any college garden by showing your Bodcard.

• Oxford Union - for members only, but you can ask a friend to take you as a guest. There’s the main library, but also three richly decorated rooms which make you feel like you’re the Prime Minister. There are even armchairs for those post-Park End mornings.