Oxford University Press Museum: A Free Guided Tour

by Laura Lai
January 15^th, 2019/ Review

What a treat today! It was a guided and free tour of the Oxford University Press Museum in Walton Street, where the University Press is located since 1830. It was first on Broad Street at the Sheldonian Theater (1669–1713) and then, also on Broad Street, but in the Clarendon Building (1713–1830).

First, the Oxford University Press Museum free guided tour is a 1-hour journey from paper to online. It starts with the first book printed in Oxford (1478), to the printing of the King James version of the Bible and Prayer Book (1675), a revisited version of the New Testament (1881), the world known Oxford English Dictionary (1884–1928), the Quarterly Journal of Medicine (1906), Oxford Advanced Lerner’s Dictionary (1948), Oxford Atlas (1951), Online Oxford English Dictionary (2000), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004, in 60 volumes and available online), etc.

Second, the Oxford University Press Museum free guided tour is a journey from a small staff in Oxford to a staff of almost 6000 people all over the world: From Theodoric Rood (1478, printer) and Joseph Barnes (1585, first official printer) to William Laud and the ‘Delegates of the Press’ (1633) elected for a 5-year mandate, meeting twice a month to decide on the publications' titles… to a staff of 6000 people in the whole world.

Third, this journey is from the first Oxford University Press in Oxford to a multitude of branch offices all over the world. The first branch office opened outside the United Kingdom was in the United States of America (1896). It followed soon the branch offices in: Canada (Toronto, 1904), Australia (Melbourne, 1908), India (Bombay or Mumbai, 1912), South Africa, New Zeeland, etc. The most recent ones are in China (Shanghai, 2002 and Beijing, 2009). And, most probably, with many others to come.

This visit tour at the Oxford University Press Museum is a chronological journey of the evolution of the Oxford University Press from its first published book in 1478 to nowadays, when thousands of new titles are published. This guided tour is an interesting 541–year historical journey of book printing. It is a treat. And a free one!