Admissions and Opening Times

Reference access to the Old Library collections is available to bona fide enquirers who need to use the special collections. Visitors should make an appointment with the Librarian before each visit.  Please do not come to the Library without a prior appointment.  We only have a small staff, who are also providing a service to the students at the College, and we will need to fetch your material from a variety of different locations.  It is therefore a great help if you can make contact well in advance of coming to the Library.  Please list the material you would like to see.  Appointments for visiting readers are available Monday to Friday, from 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.   Please note that seating and staff time for external readers is limited, so we may not always be able to accommodate you.

Research students should bring a letter of recommendation from their supervisor and suitable identification (for example, a Bodleian or British Library card). Visiting academics should produce identification such as a card from their home university or a Bodleian reader’s card; a letter of recommendation may also be required.

Modern books not held in other Oxford libraries, in particular those in the Eland collection, may be consulted in the library at the discretion of the library staff, but not borrowed. (Please make sure that you have checked all the versions of a particular book in SOLO, using the ‘View all X versions’ link before assuming that Worcester has the only copy.)  Please contact the Assistant Librarian in advance of a planned visit. We regret that we do not provide an interlibrary loan service.

The Library is located at the top of an eighteenth-century cantilevered spiral staircase with over 60 steps.  Should this present a problem, please notify us in advance of a visit, and we will make alternative arrangements for you to view material elsewhere.

For enquiries concerning the College Archives, please contact the Archivist.  Note that the Archives consist largely of College records.  The manuscript and drawings collections of George Clarke are held in the Library, as is the Daniel Press collection.