Feel free to write on Bodleian book

For the library’s executive secretary Mike Heaney, this would normally be a nightmare.

But this time Mr Heaney was happy for tourists to record their thoughts because the rare ‘book’ in question was an installation by Boars Hill artist Diana Bell.

More than 1,000 visitors queued up in the Clarendon Quadrangle to inscribe their thoughts on the artist’s chosen theme, Imagine.

Ms Bell said: “Hundreds of people stopped to write something in the book and there have been contributions in 40 different languages.

“I thought the Bodleian would be a good place for this because it is the home of books and a great storage house of knowledge.

“More than six pages have been filled up.”

Anne Kroul, 22, from Sonderburg, Denmark, said: “I enjoyed taking part. I wrote ‘a world without love, a world without understanding, a world without hope’ because I think people need to understand each other better.”

The artwork, made from wood with canvas pages and standing seven feet tall, will move to Bonn Square later in the year.

It will join a bronze sculpture depicting a pile of books which Ms Bell created to mark the revamp of the square last year and Oxford’s twinning link with the German city of Bonn.

Mr Heaney said: “When Diana Bell came to us with the idea, we could see immediately that the Bodleian Library would be an ideal setting.

“Diana has worked with our staff to achieve a design which captures the spirit of fine books and bindings to magnificent effect.

“We are very pleased to host the sculpture in its first public display.”

Ms Bell added: “The size of the book is symbolic of the immense accumulation of human knowledge.

“The title Imagine is important, because as far as we know humans are the only creatures capable of imagination, and it is through our imagination that we can create new solutions to our future survival.

“On a personal level, as we step into our imagination we enter another world.

“The act of stepping into the book becomes part of the meaning.”