Last Friday the online Bodleian search engine SOLO crashed leaving hundreds ofstudents without the ability to find their books.

The Bodleian search engine, “Search Oxford Libraries Online” (SOLO), temporarily stopped working last Friday. The search engine allows users to find which Bodleianor college libraries hold certain books.

Oana Romocea, Communications Manager for Bodleian Libraries, commented, “We are very sorry for the outage of the libraries online catalogue. The downtime was the result of an external failure with the host who provide additional search functionality for SOLO.”

She continued, “We are currently working with our external supplier to provide amore reliable product. We apologize for any inconvenience the SOLO downtime caused to our users and we will try to do everything within our control to prevent thishappening again in future.”

Maddy Ward, a theologian finalist, told Cherwell, “the prospect of not being able to find my books for a few hours initially filled me with dread. Until I realised that the Bod has all books anyway, so I just went there and the crisis was averted.”

Ben Harris, a PPEist at St Johns, was equally affected saying, “I was riding SOLO, but then it crashed. I can’t believe our system has sunk SOLO.”

Although the crash did affect many students many more were less distraught. An anonymous third year Biochemist said, “I hadn’t realised SOLO crashed until you asked me about it.”

The search engine has been known to crash before, including the infamous “Black Friday”, 25th February 2011, in which it crashed for literally minutes. It is yet to be known whether last Friday’s crash will also go down in history.

Luckily the crash was fixed within hours,.

The Oxford Union has refused to sign a contract allowing Oxford Conservative Association (OCA) to hold their weekly ‘Port and Policy’ event in the Union for free. 

The current arrangement has been in place since the start of ‘Port and Policy’ in 1994, where the Macmillan Room has been available to the Association for free every Sunday evening of term, instead of the usual fee of £550 per use.

John Lee, President of the Oxford Union, said, “Over the years, people have misleadingly come to associate the Oxford Union with the Oxford Conservative Association. This is in no small part because their most regular meeting, ‘Port and Policy’, has been held weekly at the Union for a very long time. 

“The only ideology of the Union is free and open debate. It holds no political allegiance and is a forum for discussion of all beliefs and opinions. In line with this thinking, no contract was signed that would give OCA preferential treatment. However, they are still very welcome to hire out Union rooms at the same rate as any other organisation, political or not.”

‘Port and Policy’ is described by OCA as “an informal debate where everyone is welcome to contribute if they wish.” Port is served to help “lubricate mental cogs.’

Port and Policy led to controversy last year, as a video of a member singing an anti-Semitic song at the event and leaked to national press. The association was subsequently banned indefinitely from using Corpus Christi college premises by the college’s Dean.

Jack Andrews, a theology student, criticised the previous arrangements, “I’m appalled that this went on for as long as it did. Whatever your political affiliations, you pay to join the Oxford Union expecting impartiality and for the society to do its best to drive costs down for its members by looking for additional revenue. ”

Nathan Akehurst, a second year at Lincoln, said, “The weekly ‘Port and Prejudice’ shindigs are something no-one outside of OCA will miss. Quite apart from the Union’s rightful decision as a house of free speech to separate itself from party politics, it got very frustrating hearing raucous renditions of old Etonian chants whilst trying to enjoy a quiet pint in the members’ bar.

OCA was disaffiliated from the University earlier this year due to its failure to meet “the financial and administrative standards of a recognised student club”, according to Proctors.

George Mawhinney, president of OCA, explained, “Mr Lee did offer to co-host events with us, however the terms of these offers were not in OCA’s best interests and so I declined them.’

Police were called to a house party held by Mansfield second years in Bullingdon Road in Freshers’ Week following noise complaints. They were reportedly joined by an angry local and a TV camera crew.

The arrival of the police, following noise complaints made by neighbouring residents, caused the house party to come to an early end just after 1am on Thursday 4th October.

One Mansfield visiting student, Brendan Caldwell, wrote on his blog, ‘Brendan’s Adventures Across the Pond’, “A man who was reportedly homeless began banging on the front door of the house, demanding we keep it down and tried to pick a fight with several people at the front of the house. At some point he smashed one of the windows at the front of the house.

“Immediately upon leaving the house I found a police officer, a drunk homeless man, and a camera crew. The camera crew was for a BBC documentary being made about a ‘party patrol’ that scours the town of Oxfordshire looking for parties to bust.”

Oxford City Council and police have been working together to target disruptive social behavior with a new “Party Patrol initiative”. A spokesperson for Oxford City Council commented, “A number of complaints were received by the Police about parties on 3rd October. Party Patrol was operating on that particular night and dealt with all calls received.”

A spokesperson for Thames Valley Police said, “I can confirm we received several calls from members of the public about noise coming from a party taking place at a property in Bullingdon Road, Oxford, in the early hours of Thursday 4th October. Police attended just before 1am and the party was wound down within thirty minutes.’

Mansfield Entz Reps, in an email to the JCR, invited all its members to the “traditional freshers house party” as organised by residents in a house on Bullingdon Road. Following the event, they gave a “massive thank you to everyone who lives in Bullingdon Road for a storming house party last night”.

One Entz Rep told Cherwell, “This was one of the few events in Fresher’s Week which Entz reps were not involved in organising.”

One Mansfield fresher, Luke Rollason, said, “I knew about the noise complaint. I’m pretty sure there was an angry homeless guy. There was also an angry neighbour. He was pretty angry.”

Another first year, Tom Babb, added, “It’s just another stellar night from ladtastic Ladsfield”.

The History Faculty Library (HFL) has been closed and its services relocated to the Lower Radcliffe Camera, following a decision made earlier this year, though plans to introduce lending in the Bodleian were shelved.

Last year students and academics expressed concern that the changes would lead to overcrowding of a library that was already host to Classics, Philosophy, English Literature and Theology. There was also widespread opposition to plans for the Bodleian to start lending.

Fellow in English at New College, Dr William Poole, commented on the pace of the changes, “Most of the ‘big’ decisions had already been made long before the sleepy dons shook their locks.” He added that many dons were worried about the culture of management, claiming that library users were not consulted beforehand, “One gets the feeling that large changes were agreed by small groups of people behind doors with little or no practical experience of what teaching and research actually means to real academics and students.”

Professor Gregory Hutchinson, who wrote his book, Greek to Latin: Frameworks and Contexts for Intertextuality, in the RadCam, observed the changes taking place over the summer. He wrote in the Oxford Magazine, “I reflected that I could never have got the book written in this transmogrified library.”

A University of Oxford spokesperson said, ‘The relocation of the History Faculty Library from the Old Indian Institute Building to the Old Bodleian Library and Radcliffe Camera had been planned for a time, and the move was subject to consultation with students, staff and researchers. It had been realised that the integration of the History Faculty Library services and collections into the Radcliffe Camera would make savings that could be reinvested in improved services and would improve access.

They continued, ‘The Bodleian Libraries can now have Sunday opening hours in the Radcliffe Camera and purchase new books, journals and electronic and digital resources by reassigning the funds spent on maintaining the separate premises of the History Faculty Library. This will lead to benefits for academics and students in the humanities, who will have easier access to the Bodleian’s most important historical collections and can visit history collections on Sundays.

‘These changes have not been driven by the Oxford Martin School. The Bodleian has been evolving and improving its service in line with its “Vision” published in 2006, where library consolidation and improved services were set out.’

An organised campaign by Classicists proved effective. “After vigorous representations from Classics senior members, on behalf of scholars, graduates and undergraduates, the Bodleian helpfully agreed to restore the volumes which had been removed to the Classics open shelves. Difficulties for other subjects remain, but the Bodleian is starting further consultation.”

OUSU has consistently supported the changes. Chris Gray, OUSU Vice President said, “Our predecessors accepted the HFL closure as it allowed for the Bodleian to open on Sundays. Longer opening hours have been the biggest demand of students for a long time. As a historian myself I still think this was the right decision, though as that decision was made before we came in to office our priority has been to ensure that the move happens in a way that is not detrimental to students.“

‘When the moves began it did become clear that some of the resulting changes which were made elsewhere, including the Classics rooms, were damaging to the experience of some users. Along with academics and students, OUSU raised these issues with the Bodleian and they were quickly and effectively addressed. If any further issues like this arise we urge students and student reps to bring them to our attention so that they too can be dealt with.”

The responses of History students have been varied. Phillip Bell, a 2nd year Historian at Exeter, said, “The Radcliffe Camera is a more useful resource because there are much longer opening hours. I think that there must be less reading space altogether now. To be honest, it is hard to find the books you need in either. I just use the college library or the Bodleian.”

Davina Pearce, another 2nd year Historian, said, “The Gladstone link is already busier and noisier than it was last year. The History Faculty was full in Trinity last year so I don’t know where they think people will go when they are revising. People take History books from the lower RadCam down into the Gladstone link and they take ages to get back up.”

One Historian urged a sense of perspective, commenting, “It’s had very little impact on my academic life, since my college library generally has the books I need anyway. It’s a bit of a shame not having a separate place to study but by no means the end of the world.”

RadCam users from other subject areas have not been too perturbed by the Historians’ arrival. Second Year English student Anna Ssemuyaba said, “The library is a bit busier, but I don’t really mind.”

Alexis Dale, a second year PPEist, put the problem down to psychology, “if people actually realised there was an upper camera and a Gladstone link, then it would be fine, but people just cram into the lower camera which is dark and dingy anyway.”

Ben Houghton, a History finalist, joked, “The sweat, the body odour, the sexual tension; it gets so busy I’m not sure if I’m in the Radcliffe Camera or in the club Camera!”