TheOldPlace start tours with new students this week. We seem to be a week 'behind' and wouldn't be starting that till next week. In any case, with the extension still unfinished tours are off the menu till the beginning of November.

Even when tours are available they're not the same. At TheOldPlace academics book their groups of students into slots (on the hour throughout the week) and up to 120 I think it is/was [there doesn't seem to be a grammar for this] might arrive in any one hour and would be taken on a five stop tour of the library by 10 guides working in five pairs. Of course, not every hour had that many students. It was a good team building exercise with acquisitions/loans/information team all joining in and newer staff able to learn by watching those who'd been around for longer. (And sometimes the other way round.)

Here, tours are much more ad hoc with students arriving and asking for them whenever they want (I think) and staff who've volunteered take them round. But not having seen it in action yet I'm not entirely certain.

What they do do here which didn't happen at TheOldPlace is get involved with the Freshers' Fair for new students. Handing out leaflets, enthusing about the library (?!) and answering any questions that may already be cropping up. However, since they had marketing guru and funster AB (mentioned back in early entries of this blog) this is all going to be themed around the idea of pirates and hidden treasure. It's one of those things that seems like a brilliant idea from the safety of a conference presentation but somehow is a bit more fearful from the vantage point of a week before it happens. I've already been collared to participate. I may get to dress up as a pirate, yet!

Hmmmm. Should I claim incipient old age and decide that now I'm an academic - stop laughing at the back - I should avoid this? Or should I just throw myself into it whole-heartedly and see if I can learn some jargon from International Talk Like a Pirate Day webpages (apparently I've just missed it)?