Going to the source

As a beginning point for my research, I thought it prudent to go to the source, as it were. So I have begun by visiting the Oxford University website. Here I have found an immensely useful section entitled A brief history of the University.

Considering that I might be able to find a similarly useful page relating to the Bodleian Library, I then navigated the Oxford University website to the Bodleian Library website and their History of the Bodleian.

As these histories are brief, I will endeavour to flesh them out a little more from other sources. With this in mind, and in consideration of the first part of the introductory section of my project, about the development of universities in Great Britain I pondered about what the most efficient way would be to find further source materials.

Having just become aquainted with Google Books, I used this very valuable resource to search for and preview material on these subjects, and the next task is to search the library catalogues at the State Library of Victoria, Monash University, and the University of Melbourne to see if the items I have found are held there. I will also do general searches of these catalogues to look for items that did not appear on Google Books.

Visits to these libraries, of which the Sir Louis Matheson Library at Monash University's Clayton Campus will be particularly useful as I visited the Berwick Campus yesterday to join as reciprocal borrower, are planned for early next week.