Sackler Library

Sackler Library
	The library entrance on St John Street, Oxford
Country	England
Type	Academic library
Established	2001
Location	St John Street, Oxford
Collection
Items collected	The University of Oxford collection specialising in archaeology, art history and classics
Size	300,000
Legal deposit	receives legal deposit books in relevant subject areas via the Bodleian's copyright receipt office
Access and use
Access requirements	Current University Card. Bona fide researchers may register to use the Library for reference only.
Other information
Staff	32
Website	http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/sackler/

The Sackler Library holds a large portion of the classical, art historical, and archaeological works belonging to the University of Oxford, England.

History

The Library was completed in 2001 and opened on 24 September of that year, replacing the former library of the Ashmolean Museum. The library is located at 1 St John Street, to the rear of the Ashmolean. It was founded with a donation by the multi-millionaire Dr Mortimer Sackler.

Designed by architects Robert Adam with Paul Hanvey of ADAM Architecture, it is a distinctive building, as the central block is circular. It is appropriate to its Classical purpose, as one of the outer walls is decorated by a mock-Classical frieze; also, its creators say that the entrance is based upon the Doric Temple of Apollo at Bassae, first excavated by Charles Robert Cockerell, the man who designed the Ashmolean Museum.^[1]

Collections

Its holdings incorporate the collections of four older libraries, namely the Ashmolean library, the Classics Lending Library, the Eastern Art Library, and the History of Art Library. Major subject areas are:

Western European Art since c. AD 1000
History of Art
Classical and Byzantine art and archaeology
Papyrology and Greco-Roman Egypt
Near Eastern archaeology and cuneiform languages
Egyptology and Coptic
Ancient history
Epigraphy
Classical languages and literature
Prehistoric archaeology of Europe and North Africa
Archaeology of Roman provinces
Medieval European archaeology
Theoretical and scientific archaeology
Numismatics

The Heracles Papyrus, held by the Sackler Library.

The Heracles Papyrus, a fragment of 3rd century Greek manuscript containing a poem about the Labours of Heracles, is held by the library, along with over 100,000 fragments found at Oxyrhynchus. See also Oxyrhynchus Papyri.