Last week and this and next I've been seeing some small groups of mechanical engineering students. Why they can't all come at once I'm not quite sure but apparently they can't. Anyway, these are first years and the aim is to give them a quick tour of the library's physical space and then a quick tour of the electronic space.

For this I've been making my first use of a newly refitted/finished seminar room which has worked well for them after the walkaround. I can warn them they've only seen the tip of an iceberg [1] in the physical space, demonstrate some of the main features of our e-provision, and warn them that this will become increasingly important by their third year. (Show them databases in detail in their first year and they're bored; show them in their third year and they want to know why they weren't shown them in the first year...)

Nothing changes. It must be like this in every university.

[1] try Google Images for an amazing picture of an iceberg both above and below the surface.