Members of St John’s College may visit the exhibition in the Library & Study Centre during opening hours (daily 9am – 11pm) at their convenience.
Visitors who would like to view St John’s Colleges current exhibition are asked to email library@sjc.ox.ac.uk to arrange an appointment.
Blog Posts about Past Exhibitions:
Surprising Diversity : The Length and Breadth of St John’s Historic Collections
Celebrating the Reopening of St John’s College’s Historic Libraries 4 October – 13 December 2024 Contents Introduction The Oldest … in Our Collections Royal Connections Words & Deeds: Women in Print(ing) From Bestiaries to Zoology: Animals through the Centuries Middle Eastern Manuscripts 1: Sciences Middle Eastern Manuscripts 2: Qurans &…
Thomas Willis (1621-1675) : Neurologist, Chemist, Physician
Willis, Opera omnia (Amsterdam: Heinricus Wetstein, 1682), frontispiece. Portrait of Thomas (engraving by David Loggan, 1667) Thomas Willis was born on 27 January 1621 to Thomas Willis (d. 1643) and Rachel Howell (d. 1631). He matriculated at Oxford’s Christ Church in 1638, possibly aiming for a clerical career at first.…
From Ink to Pixels: Digitizing Manuscripts at St John’s College
Library Exhibition 24 April – 22 June 2023 Introduction St John’s College Library has over 400 manuscripts, which are the focus of an ongoing digitization project begun in 2020. The aim of this project is to support global research by making catalogue records of our manuscripts accessible online in central…
Life Stories from St John’s: the famous & the forgotten
Library exhibition 9 September – 9 December 2022 Introduction For over 450 years the lifeblood of St John’s College has been the people who live and work inside its walls. Some have dedicated a good part of their lives to this College, while others have just passed through. Many have…
Trinity Term 2022 Online Exhibition
Reading, Writing, and Research A Decade in the Life of a President, 2012-2022 by Professor Maggie Snowling When I was elected President in 2012, the Governing Body agreed that I might take some time to pursue my research agenda. While finding that time was not always easy, a long vacation…
The President, the “Prince”, and the Hedgehogs
An Exhibition in honour of Ruth Ogden, Deputy Librarian 1987-2022, on the occasion of her retirement Hilary Term 2022 Online Exhibition
St John’s College and the Colonial Past
Michaelmas Term 2021 Online Exhibition The Library & Study Centre is delighted to host an exhibition curated by Dr Mishka Sinha to showcase her research on St John’s College and the Colonial Past. Dr Sinha is a Research Associate at St John’s College and co-directing the project on St John’s and…
Thomas Willis (1621-1675)
Thomas Willis (1621-1675) Celebrating the 400th Anniversary of the Founder of Neurology
Women’s History at St John’s College, Oxford
Trinity Term 2020 Online Exhibition
Stars & Surgery: History of Science Collections at St John’s College Library
Our Hilary Term 2020 exhibition focuses on astronomical and medical items in the library’s special collection. A mix of manuscripts, letters and early printed books, Stars & Surgery provides a glimpse into the understanding of science in the past. Read about some of the highlights below. This exhibition is an…
Special Collections Today and Tomorrow
Our Michaelmas term exhibition celebrates some of the key treasures of St. John’s College. Aptly named Special Collections Today and Tomorrow, the exhibition spans the new Library & Study Centre, the 17th century Laudian Library, and the 16th century Old Library, and exhibits a wide range of our Special Collections.…
Royal Intrigues
Our Trinity Term exhibition celebrates all things royal, with items from the 15th century to the 18th century. You can explore some of our key themes here. Marriage . . . In laudem matrimonij oratio, Cuthbert Tunstall, 1519 This early printed book contains speeches given at the wedding of Mary…
“excuse the scrawl”: literary letters from St. John’s special collections
Alongside collections of manuscripts and early printed books, St. John’s College’s Special Collections include personal papers of a number of well-known literary figures: Robert Graves, A.E. Housman, Jane Austen, Philip Larkin, Spike Milligan and Professor J.B. Leishman. Included in these papers is a great deal of correspondence, occasionally between other…
Not An Illustration: Livres d’artiste in the Special Collections of St. John’s College, Oxford
“Experience of our age in terms of painting—not an illustration of—(but the equivalent.)” – Jackson Pollock This is an exhibition of a selection of the college’s livres d’artiste and some other rare books which were produced in the early 1930s, in collaboration with Leonard Lye, a modernist film-maker and…
‘The Field of Human Conflict’: War Exhibition 2014
The Library at St John’s College houses extensive Special Collections, which date back to the 9th century and include some 400 manuscripts, 20,000 early printed books and significant collections of modern literary papers. In order to give College members the chance to learn more about these, we organise exhibitions displaying…