Oxford University Press

Description

Oxford University Press (OUP) is the world's largest university press, with offices in 50 countries. It is the publishing house of Oxford University, which in 1586 was granted the right to print books thanks to a decree from the Star Chamber, a committee of the English king’s council. Before that date, the University had been involved with several printers in Oxford for one century. The University’s right to print books was enhanced in the Great Charter obtained by Archbishop Laud from King Charles I, which authorised the University to print “all manner of books”.
In 1633, the University appointed Delegates to oversee the printing process. The governance structure which began to develop at that time is reflected in OUP’s current structure.
In 1713, printing moved from the Sheldonian Theatre to the Clarendon Building in Broad Street. This is when the OUP came to be known as "The Clarendon Press". The name took on a new meaning in the early 1990s, when OUP began publishing books through its office in London. To distinguish the two offices, London books were labelled "Oxford University Press", while those from Oxford were labelled "Clarendon Press" publications. This labelling ceased in the 1970s, when the London office closed. Since then, the label "Clarendon Press" has been used only for books of particular academic relevance.
One of the milestones in OUP’s history is the publishing in instalments of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in 1884. In the late 1800s the press also began expanding globally, when the first overseas office opened in New York in 1896. Further international branches opened in Canada (1904), Australia (1908), India (1912), and Southern Africa (1914).
In 1926 the Overseas Education Department (later English Language Teaching) was established, and in 1928 the last volume of the (OED) was published. Other important publications of the 1900s in the area of ELT are A.S. Hornby’s Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (1945) and Oxford Reading Tree (1985).
Book printing at OUP ceased in 1989, and in 2000 the OED was published online.