Students from Worcester College have been running a ‘Lads on Library Tour’ this week. The members of Worcester College’s Breakfast Club visit a different library each day wearing matching ‘tour’ T-shirts.
The ‘lads’ have visited the Bodleian, the Radcliffe Science Library, the Radcliffe Camera, and the Taylor Institution Library. They plan to visit the English Faculty Library and the Sackler Library in the next two days.
Alex Hunt, the Library Tour President, said, “The library tour is designed to make revision a little less suicidal whilst still achieving the same productivity. Each day, we go to breakfast in our flip flops, board shorts, tour T-shirts and sunnies, and then go to the library of the day en masse and study. The next day to process is repeated but in a different library.” The T-shirts have ‘lad nicknames’ and a tour itinerary printed on the back. Forty Worcester students own them, with “at least twenty people” attending every day.
Thomas Helfer, one of the ‘lads’, said, “The tour is really the brainchild of Alex Hunt and it certainly is a fantastic way to enliven otherwise monotonous revision sessions! The morning breakfast banter is a great way to wake up and remind yourself that you’ve got stuff that probably ought to be done during the day. Furthermore, working en masse in various libraries is a big improvement from the boredom of Worcester’s two libraries, which require frequent Half Naked Half Hours to take the heat out of its greenhouse-esque design. I’ve heard several complaints from friends in other colleges that we have taken up their space which is a bit ridiculous considering the size of the libraries. As a last thought I guess I would love to see other Colleges taking part next year!”
Anand Patel, another member of the team, told Cherwell, “I am a Law Finalist. My nickname is ‘No Fun 2012’, because this was my original plan after Alex Hunt set the bar with ‘No Fun Trinity’ last year. The Tour has been great: it’s an opportunity to have a nice relaxing start to the day with breakfast in college, and a nice walk to whichever library it is. Once we get into the libraries we have been mindful that it is Finals term, and with many of us preparing for Finals ourselves, it has been all business outside of breaks.
“It’s been a great way of breaking up the monotony of revision, and is an example of The Breakfast Club’s innovative methods.” He continued, “We don’t discriminate on the basis of gender. Whilst the members of the Club are almost exclusively male, we consider ‘Lad’ to be a state of mind, or a ‘way of life’. Thus, as you may have seen or heard, there have been several women on tour this week.
“Other colleges needn’t be jealous – they may have their own methods of dealing with the ‘revision blues’. This is just the mode we have chosen, and we feel it works for us.”
