the Snell Exhibition. Historic Collections Centre St Cross had a falling attendance for many years, and in February 2008 its Parochial Church Council decided unanimously to allow Balliol College to develop a purpose-built repository and research facility for the College's special collections and their users in the church. After the closure of the church in 2008, building work was undertaken to convert the building for use as an Historic Collections Centre for Balliol College. The church has not been deconsecrated; under the terms of the College's 999-year lease on the building, the chancel is maintained for occasional services. Some fittings and fixtures of the church have been removed, including the organ, which was relocated to a church in Ireland. Memorials remain in or as near as possible to their pre-2008 position. The font was relocated, with permission, from near the south door to the north side of the chancel step, to allow full use of the south aisle for one of the repository units. The bells remain in situ in the tower, but unringable, after Oxford City Council refused permission for their removal. The work was completed at an estimated cost of £3.3 million and opened in 2011. In May 2008, the Shirley Foundation contributed £1m towards Balliol College's Historic Collections Centre to be housed in St Cross Church. This contains: the College's own administrative records; extensive personal papers of former Masters, Fellows and students; manuscript books, mostly from the College's medieval library; early printed books including incunabula; and other special items previously located separately, allowing expansion of the College Library's services on the main site in Broad Street. One manuscript book (Balliol MS 317) dates from circa 1170 and has been held by the College since 1276. Many of the medieval books survive from the College's contemporary library, and the bulk of the collection is not formed of later antiquarian acquisitions as held by more recent foundations, although it is as large as some of these. This is the third library at Oxford University to be converted from a church, the others being All Saints on the High Street (Lincoln College) and St Peter-in-the-East, Queen's Lane (St Edmund Hall). A further two libraries were converted from convent chapels, those of the Society of the Holy and Undivided Trinity (St Antony's) and the Society of the Holy Child Jesus (Linacre). The Centre has modern research facilities. As a central Oxford