Radcliffe Camera, Oxford

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The Radcliffe Camera (colloquially, "Rad Cam" or "Radders") is a building in Oxford, England, designed by James Gibbs in the English Palladian style and built in 1737–1749 to house the Radcliffe Science Library. The building was funded by a £40,000 bequest from John Radcliffe, who died in 1714. Nicholas Hawksmoor originally proposed making the building round, although the final plans designed by Gibbs were quite different from those planned by Hawksmoor.

After the Radcliffe Science Library moved into another building, the Radcliffe Camera became home to additional reading rooms of the Bodleian Library. It now holds books from the English, history, and theology collections, mostly secondary sources found on undergraduate reading lists. There is space for around 600,000 books in rooms beneath Radcliffe Square.

Many students choose to order books up to Radcliffe Camera's reading rooms to enjoy the picturesque surroundings. Annoyingly for staff, it is also one of the harder Bodleian sites to deliver items to.[1]

The word camera translates from Latin as "room" or "chamber".

source: Wikipedia