Oxford University Press
publishing arm of the University of Oxford
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books by decree in 1586. It is the second-oldest university press after Cambridge University Press, which was founded in 1534.
It is a department of the University of Oxford. It is governed by a group of 15 academics, the Delegates of the Press, appointed by the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. The Delegates of the Press are led by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. Oxford University Press has had a similar governance structure since the 17th century. The press is located on Walton Street, Oxford, opposite Somerville College, in the inner suburb of Jericho.
For the last 400 years, OUP has focused primarily on the publication of pedagogical texts.
“Oxford University Press” enters the record as publishing arm of the University of Oxford. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Oxford, University and Press can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Oxford University Press” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Oxford, University and Press provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q217595. VIAF identifies the subject as 140705396. The Library of Congress control number is n80126136. Authority coordinates are 51.759, -1.269. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1478, 1586 and 1534.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Oxford University Press”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Oxford University Press primary sources, Oxford University Press archive and Oxford research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Oxford University Press”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Oxford University Press” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.