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Photo: Ozeye, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The university's centre for the study of modern European languages and literature, established in 1845. Its library contains the largest specialist collection in its field in Britain. It is in a neo-classical building designed by Charles R. Cockerell and erected between 1841 and 1844 by the university to house the institution and the Randolph Galleries (now the Ashmolean Museum).
The Taylor Institution is the Oxford University library dedicated to the study of the languages of Europe. Its building also includes lecture rooms used by the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford. Since 1889, an Annual Lecture on a subject of Foreign Literature has been given at the Taylorian Institution.
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Vast, impressive, and has undergone major redevelopment, the Ashmolean is Britain's oldest public museum, having been founded in 1683. The museum displays ancient art from Egypt, the Near East, Greece and Rome, a fine collection of Western art and artifacts and a sizeable Eastern Art collection. Highlights include the Amarna Princess Fresco and the Alfred Jewel. A restaurant and gift store also feature.
Worthwhile plays.
Houses the university's scientific collections of zoological, entomological, geological, palaeontological and mineralogical specimens, accumulated in the course of the last 3 centuries. The exhibits occupy a large central court with elegant Victorian cast-iron columns supporting the great glass roof, and surrounded on four sides by upper and lower arcades. They are devoted to the history and diversity of life on Earth and the rocks and minerals that form it. Highlights include the famous Oxford Dodo, the largest display of dinosaur remains outside London, a great collection of skeletons, and the nesting swifts in the museum's main tower.
Tickets sold at the Box Office of the Oxford Playhouse (see above)
Oxford's museum of anthropology and ethnology, still largely arranged in Victorian style, making this a rare museum experience. The Pitt Rivers requires time and effort but gives great satisfaction. The collection is displayed according to the types and functions of the objects, instead of periods or origins. The museum does a great job educating about its past role in reinforcing colonial power structures. Certain controversial items, such as the Shuar tsantsa ("shrunken heads"), remain in the museum's inventory but are no longer on display due to ethical concerns.
The main research library of the University of Oxford, the Bodleian is one of the oldest libraries in Europe (opened in 1602, based on the collection of Thomas Bodley), and in the UK is second in size only to London's British Library. The Bodleian now possesses numerous branches throughout the university; visiting bibliophiles will be most keen to peruse the central site, which includes Duke Humfrey's Library above the Divinity School, the Old Schools Quadrangle with its Great Gate and Tower, the Radcliffe Camera, Britain’s first circular library, and the Clarendon Building.