It is almost every book lover’s dream to walk into an old library, smell the books, look at the gorgeous architecture, and explore.

Today, that dream became a reality for me. 🙂 As an Oxford University student (yes, I am officially called that!), we get access to all of the Bodleian libraries. The public are never allowed inside.

The inside and the outside both are breathtaking. The architecture is centuries old. The inside is gilded and has painted trim around the top of people and sayings in, I believe, Latin. It has several winding staircases of metal and wood/marble. It looked like all those meme drawings of girls reading on a winding staircase surrounded by books. Honestly, I’m a Creative Writing major, and I’m having a hard time describing this amazing place. Although that could be because I’m really tired from biking around Oxford and orientation.

The libraries have over 1.7 Million books. They have every book ever published in Britain and Ireland. Every single book. That is mind boggling to me. They have original manuscripts and first drafts from many authors including Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Chaucer (well, original draft of the illuminated manuscript), just to name a few. They also have original music from Mendelssohn. And the first cover art for The Hobbit drawn by J.R.R. Tolkien. I didn’t get to see the latter personally yet, but I did see a picture. 🙂

I did not want to leave, but I am so excited to be able to study at these libraries. I haven’t ever liked researching through books, however, that has suddenly changed in the course of an afternoon. I’m pretty sure I’ve never had this desire to research so much. I mean, when else in my life am I going to have access to this sort of knowledge and information? Probably never. I am going to take full advantage of this beyond amazing opportunity.