THE art and science of colour will be celebrated at the Bodleian Library’s first ever Library Lates event.

It will take place on Thursday from 7pm to 9pm at the Bodleian’s Weston Library in Broad Street.

Visitors will be invited to relax over a colourful cocktail and enjoy drop-in mini-exhibition tours, pigment demonstrations, a curator Q&A, and discover more about the neuroscience of seeing colour.

Visitors can also have a go at making their own Christmas cards and join in with an Arabic calligraphy workshop. The event is free.

Catriona Cannon, Deputy Librarian at the Bodleian Library, said: “We’re really looking forward to holding the Bodleian’s first ever Library Late session and give visitors the chance to explore our wonderful collections in a more informal way.

“The Weston Library is open to visitors every day but we hope this event might encourage even more people who haven’t yet visited to come along and see something new.”

As well as the drop-in activities, visitors will have late access to the exhibition Bodleian Treasures: 24 Pairs, the new Designing English: Graphics on the medieval page exhibition, and a new display, The full picture: Oxford in Portraits.

Tours of the Prince of the Black Sheep Persian arts display in the Bodleian will also be available.

The library’s Education Programme is supported by the Helen Hamlyn Trust.

The Weston Library is one of the newest cultural destinations in Oxford and has welcomed more than two million visitors since opening in March 2015.

The building has also won numerous architectural awards and was shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize 2016.

It is home to the Bodleian’s special collections, the second largest collection of manuscripts and archives in Britain, with items ranging in date from papyri of the third century B.C. to modern correspondence and papers.

The Bodleian has been a legal deposit library for 400 years.

Members of the public can explore collections via digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk