Of Latin Rites and Times New Roman

It's been over a week since our matriculation at the Sheldonian Theatre in the center of Oxford. Historically, the center of Oxford has been at Carfax, and this is still what would seem to be the central crossroads of the contemporary city; the university, however, has its noumenal center in the cluster of buildings that include the Radcliffe Camera, the Sheldonian Theatre (where degrees are conferred as well), and of course the Bodleian Library. The last-named is probably the closest one can get to a symbolic "heart" of the university (it's certainly not the fortress-like buildings of the University Offices in Wellington Square); the library card for the Bodleian also doubles as one's university ID. The Bodleian is an uplifting sight with yellow light pouring from behind the large window panes at dusk under the spires, and it's also a cosy idea to know that every book published in the United Kingdom is sitting somewhere there. This cosiness of the idea doesn't necessarily translate into practical terms, though: the Bodleian is far from being one of those libraries where you can spend countless hours wandering amidst shelves of books (it's not Barnes and Noble, after all): upon entering what you find are rows of computers running the arcane Telnet program, which the library still uses to search for books; this has neither the charm of a card catalog or the convenience of modern computer interfaces. The book, when you do find it, is likely to be "withdrawn", which is the Bod's equivalent of a museum's piece being in storage rather than on display. You fill out a request for the book, and make an appointment to read it in one of the reading-rooms. The reading-rooms are admittedly quite nice (I'm partial to the Upper Camera), but I'm an impatient person; I'll make an appointment to see my dentist, say, but to schedule to consult a book is somewhat laborious. Nor is the status of the Bodleian as a "deposit library" (by law, every book, journal, newspaper, magazine, etc., published must send them a copy) quite as watertight as they would like one to believe: these days, "publishing" can take many forms and its definition is becoming quite fluid, so people from across the disciplines have been commenting on how the Bodleian has been missing out on many key documents, even those which are in print. Let's see how they deal with the new publishing industry being created by the likes of lulu.com. Despite these criticisms I can never cross Radcliffe Square without thinking of the miles of books lying in the subterranean tunnels, ready to be conveyed the great sprawl of the Bodleian through the network of pneumatic pipes.

The University of Oxford does seem to be highly modernised, with every lecture I've attended so far being accompanied by a Power Point presentation as de rigueur; but one would think that a university of this calibre would also have cutting-edge IT technology. What I've seen so far seems to be the hegemony of Microsoft and its tell-tale harbinger and fingerprint, the ominprescence of Times New Roman. I am still reeling from the amount of Times New Roman I am subjected to on a daily basis; does anyone not think of varying the typeface at some point? I've never been a great fan of sans serif typefaces but coming home to my beloved Mac I am tempted to obliterate all the Times-related font sets from my computer's Font Book to salve my battered sensibilities. I suppose 800 years of history might be dragging the University down a bit, but if it pedalled a little harder, perhaps it could get beyond Windows 2000.

So, then. The verb "to matriculate" comes from the Latin "matricula", which means "stand around freezing your ass off in ridiculous costume on a drizzly Saturday morning". Oxford is one of the last universities to actually keep the tradition of the ceremony, which is to physically present oneself before the (in our case, Vice-Chancellor as representative of the) university, who was supposed to take down one's name in a notebook of sorts and thus recognize one as a member of the university. So in full battle gear (black gowns flapping in the wind, tassels a-twirling) we all filled the Sheldonian to the rafters for the ceremony, which lasted all of about seven minutes (including the pipe organ fanfare). The Sheldonian isn't a very large theatre, and there are thirty-six colleges, so everyone is hustled away quickly for the next batch to enter. But the real induction into Oxford, in my opinion, is the moment when you learn how to ride your bicycle while carrying a stack of books and balancing an umbrella in the rain.

The Bodleian Library
www.lulu.com