The Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles is an association of bibliophiles and book collectors run by undergraduate and postgraduate students at the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1950 by a group of young bibliophiles headed by John Granger, Bent Juel-Jensen and R. John Rickett, and the first meeting was held in Hilary Term of 1951. For fifty years the Society held regular lectures,
visits and other events during the University terms, and many of the leading bibliographers, librarians, book collectors, booksellers and other literary figures of the period spoke to the Society or hosted visits. Many of the Society's junior members went on to become prominent figures in the world of books. One of the most influential members was John Sparrow, Warden of All Souls, who encouraged a love of books and manuscripts in a generation of students, and hosted a termly 'Warden's Meeting' at which members were encouraged to bring items from their own libraries to pass round and say a few words about; the tradition of the Warden's Meeting continued after 1986, when the Warden himself was too ill to host the meetings and, indeed, after his death in 1992. Another of the Society's traditions was the quality of the termly programme cards ('Termcards'), often produced by the leading printers and private presses of the age. After a period of difficulties in the last decade of the twentieth century, the Society ceased all activity in 2000, when interest among the students had declined so far that a Junior Committee could no longer be raised. However, due to the efforts of a new generation of Oxford students, aided by a few surviving members of the former Society, the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles was refounded in Trinity Term 2008 and became fully active in Michaelmas term in the same year. The revived Society's traditions (visits, talks, hand-printed termcards, and the Warden's Meeting) continue to this day. A compact history of the old Society, with handsome reproductions of its termcards, can be found in Paul W. Nash and Justin Howes, Bibliophiles at Oxford: a celebration of fifty years of the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles, 1951-2000, with descriptive notes on the term cards.
