£5m donation to university library

A rare collection of books and artefacts will be open to the public for the first time after a £5million donation was made to the famous Bodleian Library at Oxford University.

Original manuscripts from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein will be among a number of national treasures put on display in a new exhibition hall.

The donation by Julian Blackwell, president of the Blackwell's academic bookshop chain, is the largest yet made to a university library in the UK.

The redevelopment, called the New Bodleian Library, will enable priceless 400-year-old collections, which have previously only been accessible to a limited number of specialist scholars, to be put on permanent public display.

They include rare books, maps, manuscripts and artefacts from around the world that have been accumulated by the University since its foundation nearly 800 years ago.

Amongst the new exhibits will be the earliest complete book written in the English language, Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, one of only eight Gutenberg Bibles, four of the original copies of the Magna Carta written in the 13th Century and original hand-written texts of many popular classics.

Artefacts include Sir Francis Drake's chair made from the beams of his ship the Golden Hind and Shelley's pocket watch.

The new exhibition hall will be named the Blackwell Hall in commemoration of the donation.

Julian Blackwell said: "The Bodleian is unique. It not only has the largest and most important university collections in the world, but it is leading the development of cutting-edge information services which are so vital to academic research."

The donation will be officially announced during the Bodleian Founder's Lunch, an annual event honouring the memory of the library's founder, Sir Thomas Bodley, and his legacy of philanthropy.