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The crass plans to break up the Bodleian exemplify the irreversible damage that can be done when scholarship gives way to "professional management".

Fortunately, in Oxford the academic community remains the governing body. The academics own the buildings and the books of the Bodleian, and the statutes of the university require their consent before there is change of use to turn the Radcliffe Camera into a Visitor Centre. The estates plan for the buildings will have to be published in the end. Then the real university can discuss the proposals.

G. R. Evans
Professor of medieval theology and intellectual history
Cambridge University