02 May 08

This soft-drink ad from the John Johnson Collection dates from June 1900

The Bodleian Library has created online access to 65,000 items from the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera.

The John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera is one of the largest and most important collections of transitory written matter in the world, consisting of over 1.5 million items.

The collection provides extensive documentary evidence of our cultural, social, industrial and commercial history over the last five centuries. Assembled by John de Monins Johnson (1882-1956), printer to the University from 1925 to 1946, it was transferred from Oxford University Press to the Bodleian Library in 1968. 

The two-year digitisation project, which started in spring 2007, will eventually allow users full access to over 150,000 high-resolution full-colour images, accompanied by detailed descriptive metadata, searchable text and introductory essays delivered in an interactive interface. The web-based resource features five broad subject headings: 19th-century entertainment; booktrade; popular prints; crimes, murders and executions; and advertising.

Richard Ovenden, Associate Director and Keeper of Special Collections, Bodleian Library, said: ‘Regarded as the most significant single collection of ephemera in the UK, the John Johnson Collection has been one of Bodleian’s least known treasures. Through the digitization programme we are now able to make this valuable primary resource available to researchers and the general public worldwide.’ 

The John Johnson project is part of a £22m digitisation programme being managed by JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) with funding from HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) to make available a wide range of heritage and scholarly resources of national importance, including sound, moving pictures, newspapers, maps, images, cartoons, census data, journals and parliamentary papers, for use by the UK further and higher education communities.