CMRS students are presented for admission as readers of Oxford University’s Bodleian Libraries at the beginning of each semester.  As readers they may gain access to all of the system’s thirty-eight libraries, whose specialisms range from history to physical science, from archaeology to theology, taking in social sciences and various types of literature along the way. Altogether the libraries hold over eleven million volumes.

Chief among these libraries is the Bodleian itself, taking its name from Sir Thomas Bodley, who refounded it on the site of the previous, fifteenth-century library. It was opened on 8 November 1602 and has an unbroken history from that time. Bodleian buildings include Duke Humfrey’s Library above the Divinity School, the Old Schools Quadrangle with its Great Gate and Tower of the Five Orders, the Radcliffe Camera, Britain’s first circular library, and the underground Gladstone Link. It now contains more than eight million volumes, and is an international centre for advanced study and research. Thus, the Bodleian is a reference not a lending library, but CMRS students may use it whenever it is open.