Book boxes to OER: opening up Oxford
A mountain of book boxes from Rewley House library
A couple of months ago while filming a video about our work on the Cascade project with JISC we visited the mountain of book boxes that are in the basement of our library. These are legacy from the days gone by of the department, when opening up access to Oxford meant traveling around the UK by train, with your TRAVELLING LIBRARY and giving lectures.
The interior label from an early book box
It is worth noting that although we now offer many online courses this does actually still happen, with the occasional church hall still hosting a book box as we speak. There is more about the history of the department on our website, acting as a reminder that exploring how best to open up education is not a new pursuit, and that projects such as Sesame and the generation of OER are just the latest evolution of this work.