Title page of Balliol Library's Second Folio by William Shakespeare

Exhibitions and Outreach

Balliol’s Historic Collections Centre in St Cross Church in Oxford city centre is periodically open for public exhibitions and talks, which are advertised on the events page. (For online exhibitions, see Printed Special Collections and Archives and Manuscripts.) We also welcome visits from school parties.

Exhibitions and talks

Current and upcoming exhibitions

‘Found in the Belly of a Cod-fish’: Discoveries in the Early Printed Books of Balliol College

Poster for the exhibition 'Found in the Belly of Cod-Fish' showing a hand-coloured illustration of mule from a 17th century book.

Books, like other artefacts, travel through time. They are re-viewed or even re-shaped by many eyes and hands at different moments in history. The marks left behind give us clues about the way people thought and lived, their relationships with texts and with each other, their beliefs and their skepticisms. At Balliol our dedicated cataloguers have been discovering those markings as they describe Balliol’s 20,000 early printed books (dating from around 1450 to 1800). Work is still on-going, but they have already found enough material to put on this exhibition which demonstrates that texts are not immaterial entities floating in the ether, but always grounded and shaped by the physical pages, covers, typefaces and annotations that make up a book. From Shakespeare to warm beer, come and see books with doodles, books with pressed flowers, hand-coloured books, books with bindings made from other books, small books, books about singing whilst fishing, and any number of books about the strange contents to be found in 17th century stomachs.

Held at Balliol College Historic Collections Centre, St Cross Church, Oxford

Opening times:

  • Friday 2 May, 11.00am—4.00pm
  • Friday 9 May, 11.00am—4.00pm
  • Thursday 22 May, 3.00pm‑7.00pm
  • Monday 2 June, 11.00am—4.00pm
  • Sunday 8 June, 11.00am—4.00pm
  • Thursday 12 June, 11.00am‑4.00pm
  • Wednesday 18 June, 3.00pm—7.00pm

The exhibition is also open by appointment: please email library@​balliol.​ox.​ac.​uk.

Apocalypse Now? Seven Visions from the Historic Collections

It often feels like the end of world … but is it?

Apocalyptic predictions are quite common and often seem to pass without issue. Why do we make these predictions? Perhaps we find comfort in spotting patterns, or maybe it’s because we need some certainty, even if it does bring doom to our timeline – at least we know what’s coming!

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Revelation to John in Martin Luther’s 1541 Bible. [Balliol College Historic Collections, MARTIN LUTHER (II)].

This exhibition will look at apocalyptic scenarios from Balliol’s collections from the Book of Revelation to climate change. How scared should we be? Hopefully we can find reason to be cheerful.

Opening Michaelmas Term 2025 — opening times TBC.

Held at Balliol College Historic Collections Centre, St Cross Church, Oxford

Previous exhibitions

There are details of previous exhibitions and talks on the events archive page; below are a few examples linking to available catalogues or recordings. Forthcoming exhibitions and talks are advertised on the events page.

School visits

Balliol’s historic collections of over 750 years of books and manuscripts are so wide ranging that they can transport a group to almost any time and place. Students at all levels can view the present through the complexities of the past, honing their critical skills as they interpret the sources. The collections could potentially inspire a range of curriculum subjects including History, English, Art, Geography, Design and Technology, and Computing. Teachers interested in using Balliol’s collections to support the curriculum and inspire their students are encouraged to contact the Library to find out more.

Here are some ideas …

Judging a Book by Its Cover

(Art, Design and Technology, English, History) [50 minutes]

Image of the edges of the textblock of an 18th-century Dutch Pentateuch showing decorative gilding and gauffering, as well as two book-clasps

The look of books has changed over time. This group activity explores the covers (bindings) of early printed books: the different materials that were used in book production; how individual bindings relate to the choices of individual owners; the differences between then and now. Covers have always protected books but their other functions have changed with the arrival of mass production and marketing. So can you really judge a book by its cover?

‘I liked finding out new materials’
‘I liked the patterns around the building’
‘I liked guessing the Latin words like angelica’
‘I liked the layout of the books 500 years ago’
Falconbrook Primary School Book Club, 2013

‘I could hear some of the children saying that they want to come to Oxford, and as they left a couple said to look out for their applications! It’s a great testament to how much your workshop caught their imaginations.’
Jane Lewis, Schools Liaison and Access Officer, University College Oxford, 2014

Balliol Boys’ Club: Town and Gown in the First World War

(History) [45 minutes]

Students looking at memorabilia relating to Balliol Boys Club from the College Archive

Archival research is detective work. Use your detective skills to track down the sources hidden around St Cross Church and uncover the history the Balliol Boys’ Club.

This activity could form the basis of a local history study on this early 20th-century ‘working boy’s club’ run by students at Balliol College for the children of the Parish of St Ebbes in Oxford. It could include communication between the front line and the home front during the First World War and the historic social tensions between town and gown in Oxford.

Church and State 1509–1745: Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Britain

(History) [60 minutes]

Detail of a woodcut illustration from Foxe's Book of Martyrs showing the execution by fire of Thomas Cranmer, 16th century

From the Vulgate Bible to the Book of Common Prayer, use Balliol’s rich collection of books printed in the Reformation period to travel back in time and explore two centuries of religious and social changes in Britain and beyond.

Curiosities: Real and Imaginary Beasts

(History, Art, English, Geography) [50 minutes]

Engraving of a sloth from Gaspar Schott's Physica Curiosa, 1662. Balliol Library 30 c 333 2

Gaspar Schott lived in Germany in the 1600s. He wanted to write a book about animals that would seem unusual to people in Europe, but he had never been outside Europe himself. How did he find out about these animals? How could he tell if what he heard was true? Students use early maps to discover some curious beasts for themselves, and decide whether the report they send back to Schott is real, imaginary, or somewhere in between.

‘I found this place like a myth library very interesting and unknown’
‘I really liked the spooky bits example when we went behind the bookshelf’
Year 8 student explorers from various schools

From Manuscript to Mass Production: The History of the Book in Europe

(History, Art, Design and Technology) [60 minutes]

Publishing students from Oxford Brookes look at a medieval manuscript

Six books, 600 years of development: from the handwritten book through the development of the printing press to mass production in the machine press era. This ‘show and discuss’ session uses treasures from the collections to examine changes in materials and processes, and their wider social implications, in the production of a simple yet socially significant technology: the book.

‘The students were unanimously enthusiastic about the session, and really valued the opportunity to see examples of six centuries of books laid out in this fashion. They really liked the way that they were introduced to the various books and the technological processes in their production. They particularly valued the fact that they were given the opportunity to handle the books. Asked if anything should be different next year, their only suggestion was that the session was a bit longer.’
Dr Caroline Davis, Senior Lecturer, Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies

Iconic Shakespeare, Forgotten Jonson

(English Literature, History, Art, Design and Technology) [60 minutes]

Engraved portrait of William Shakespeare from the title page of the College's 2nd Folio, 1632

Everyone’s heard of William Shakespeare but his friendly, dramatic rival, Ben Jonson is less well known. Discuss why with a hands on comparison of three early modern title pages: the complete works of Ben Jonson, and King James I, both published in 1616, the year of Shakespeare’s death, and Shakespeare’s second folio (1632). Learn to interpret images like a seventeenth-century consumer and interrogate them like a twenty-first century historian. 

Curator for an Hour

(History, English, Art, Design and Technology, Computing) [60 minutes]

Glass paste medallion showing Adam Smith in profile (white on a blue background) produced by James Tassie in 1787

The challenge: to plan a display featuring five of Balliol’s special collections items … in just one hour. It could be a ‘live’ exhibition (real objects in cases, in a building), or a virtual exhibition (digital images of real objects, on a website). Students will use cross-disciplinary skills, learning to interrogate sources, communicate ideas, and use design effectively. Without curators, objects from the past might never get the chance to tell their stories, and lots of historical evidence would be lost.

A Session to Suit

Illuminated initial from a 13th century manuscript of Aristotle showing a hooded monk teaching two novices. Balliol manuscript 253

Our collections are full of treasures, so if you would like to use them to enhance a topic you are teaching please get in touch.