Supporting the conservation of historic manuscripts
Manuscripts and archives are the lifeblood of history.
The Bodleian Library is a flagship of the world’s shared cultural and intellectual heritage.
At its heart are our treasured and rare manuscript and archive collections. From papyri and medieval illuminated books to modern diaries, letters and journals, these are primary sources for understanding the past.
The Bodleian’s manuscripts are more heavily used than at any previous time in the history of the Library – but this means they also require more care and attention.
Your gifts will fund essential conservation treatments to allow manuscripts to be restored so they can handled, studied, digitised and displayed. In making a gift, you will be supporting international scholarship at the highest levels, opening up the Libraries’ unique treasures to the wider world.
Here’s what your gift could support
Please join us in conservation of the Bodleian Libraries’ historic manuscripts by making a gift today.
per month would pay for 5 conservation boxes per year, to store and present collections
would support the purchase of specialist parchment to cover one manuscript
would support a conservator to fix the sewing structure of an album
would enable a conservator to stabilise the flaking paint on one miniature painting
would send a conservator to a residential training course
Explore the gallery
Analysing the colours of the pre-Columbian and early colonial Mexican manuscripts
The conservation studio team at work
A selection of conservation studio brushes
A selection of conservation studio tools
‘Pounced’ paper designs used for an album of Ragamala pictures (MS. Laud Or. 149*).
Stabilizing the ‘Book of the Constellations of the Fixed Stars’ by ‘Abd al-Rahmān al-Sūfī
The trial sewing of a primary end band that will be used on MS. Laud Misc. 99, a Middle English manuscript work of practical divinity entitled ‘Disce Mori’
1680s Chancellor’s Court Papers from the Oxford University Archive
MS. Tenbury 1208, church music by Johann Pachelbel
Removal of surface dirt from 1680’s Chancellor’s Court Papers
Conservation staff working in the studio
Conservation staff analysing a scroll in the studio