It was a seemingly off-hand comment that did it. Meeting in July 1921 to discuss the history of the book, two enthusiasts wondered if they could encourage others to join the conversation. ‘Why not found a Society?’ they asked. In December, a circular signed by twelve men proposed precisely that. On 1 January 1922, the Oxford Bibliographical Society (OBS) was born. In the century since, it has indeed promoted convivial discussion about the production, collection and use of books. It has also issued learned texts of its own. Recent publications include a re-creation of John Ruskin’s library and a study of the 15th-century printer Johann Zainer.

Now widely recognised as one of the leading forums for the subject in Britain, the OBS owes its existence to that impulsive suggestion and the dozen unlikely characters, ranging from the eccentric to the insufferable, who were motivated to act on it. But its emergence was not wholly adventitious. It also tells us something about a set of changes that were reshaping the city of Oxford and its university.

Several of the founders worked at the Bodleian Library. A sleepy, near-empty, unheated, often dark and generally unwelcoming place, the Bodleian attracted an average of sixteen readers a day in 1880. By the 1920s, a minor revolution was under way. New reading rooms, new facilities and a new catalogue were