IGeLU Supporting Organisation – 
Mr Richard Ovenden OBE MA FRSA FSA FRHistS
Bodley’s Librarian
Richard Ovenden has been Bodley’s Librarian (the senior Executive position of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford) since 2014. Prior to that he held positions at Durham University Library, the House of Lords Library, the National Library of Scotland, and the University of Edinburgh. He moved to the Bodleian in 2003 as Keeper of Special Collections, becoming Deputy Librarian in 2011. He was educated at the University of Durham and University College London, and holds a Professorial Fellowship at Balliol College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, the Royal Society of Arts, and a Member of the American Philosophical Society. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in The Queen’s Birthday Honours 2019.
Richard serves as Treasurer of the Consortium of European Research Libraries, as President of the Digital Preservation Coalition, and as a member of the Board of the Council on Library and Information Resources (in Washington DC).
He has written extensively on the history of the book, on the history of photography, and on current concerns in the library, archive and information worlds.
Previous Books
Burning the Books, A History of Knowledge Under Attack (2020)
John Thomson (1837-1921): Photographer (1997)
A Radical’s Books (with Michael Hunter, Giles Mandelbrote, and Nigel Smith) (1999)