We are offering tours in Edinburgh on Friday 12 June, and one tour, a visit to St Andrews and the East Neuk of Fife, on Saturday 13 June. The tours on Friday 12 are free to delegates and accompanying persons; for the visit to St Andrews there is a fee of £40. Tours are selected as part of the registration process. All tours will depart from the Appleton Tower. Travel will be arranged, either on foot by “walking bus” or by transport, depending on the distance to the site. The duration of each tour varies: most tours on 12 June will return to Appleton Tower by 1700; the St Andrews visit on 13 June lasts all day.
Tours on Friday 12 June
New tour option: Edinburgh Central Library
You can sign up for this tour on a booking list that will be posted near the registration/information desk at the Appleton Tower.
Take a tour of Edinburgh Central Library – Edinburgh’s biggest public library. Opened 125 years ago, the building retains many of its original features whilst operating a modern, vibrant public library service – including a recently refurbished children’s library and music library.
This library building on George IV Bridge is remarkable for its architecture: this short video has some nice images showing the architecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_DGoToXpN4 (Susan, who narrates the video, used to be one of the medical librarians at the University of Edinburgh).
Itinerary 1500-1600 Depart Appleton Tower on foot at 1445. Tour starts at 1500 The tour will last approx 45 mins. Participants make own transport arrangements after tour.
Historical tour of veterinary education in Edinburgh (This tour is now fully booked)
This walking tour will be led by Alastair Macdonald and Colin Warwick, veterinary historians who have researched the development for veterinary education in Edinburgh for several years. They will lead delegates on a walking tour, taking in sights such as the Royal Mile and Surgeons Hall, and describing the historical links with veterinary education and with William Dick, the founder of the veterinary school in Edinburgh. The tour will end at Summerhall which was the site of the ‘Dick Vet’ from 1916 to 2011 and is now an arts venue and bar/restaurant. The estimated duration of this walking tour is 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Itinerary Depart Appleton Tower by bus at 1445 to starting point of walking tour. Walking tour ends approximately 1730, at Summerhall (short walk from Appleton Tower).
Edinburgh Napier University Library – Sighthill campus (This tour is now fully booked)
The five-storey Library/LRC at Sighthill is home to the Faculty of Health, Life and Social Sciences, operating out of two Schools – the School of Life, Sport & Social Sciences and the School of Nursing, Midwifery & Social Care. We have about 5000 students on campus doing subjects such as biomedical and life sciences, sports sciences; vet nursing; human nursing (adult, child, mental health, learning disabilities) and midwifery; psychology, sociology, criminology and forensics. We moved here in Jan 2011. The library and IT services have since converged to become “Information Services (IS)”. We obtained the Cabinet Office “Customer Service Excellence” award back in 2009 and have retained it every year since.
Itinerary We are very much looking forward to welcoming you to our campus. Our itinerary for your visit is given below:
| 1445 | Bus departs from Appleton Tower |
| 1500 | Welcome, coffee and take in the Edinburgh skyline views from our top floor |
| 1520 – 1535 | Health Faculty teaching, learning & research – Sheena Moffat (Subject Librarian) Development of the Sighthill LRC – Sheila Barcroft (Campus Support Manager) Our values: customer service excellence – Margaret Lobban (Deputy Director, IS) |
| 1535 | Tour of Sighthill LRC |
| 1645 | Bus departs to return to Appleton Tower |
National Library of Scotland (These tours are now fully booked)
The National Library of Scotland (NLS) is the world’s leading centre for the study of Scotland and the Scots. We are a major European research library, with collections of world-class importance. Behind-the-scenes tours of the Library include a visit to the reading rooms and book stacks. The NLS is approximately 10 minutes’ walking distance from the Appleton Tower (see location map).
Tour 1 Itinerary: 1500-1600 Depart Appleton Tower on foot at 1445. Tour starts at 1500 and ends approx 1600. Participants make own transport arrangements after tour.
Tour 2 Itinerary: 1600-1700 Participants can meet at the NLS at 1600, or depart together from Appleton Tower on foot at 1545. Tour ends approx 1700. Participants make own transport arrangements after tour.
New College Library (This tour is now fully booked)
Founded in 1843 as the library of the Free Church College, New College Library now serves the University’s School of Divinity. It is one of the largest theology libraries in the UK, with over a quarter of a million items and over 1km of historic material. New College Library Special Collections include manuscripts and archives, rare books, theses, photographs and objects. Its large and rich special collections include the papers of Thomas Chalmers, J.H. Oldham and James S. Stewart, treasures from the Reformation, a complete set of the Acta Sanctorum and over a hundred incunabula. The special collections include medical and scientific material as well as theological material.
New College is located in the city centre on The Mound, overlooking Princes Street Gardens and the National Gallery of Art, and close to Edinburgh castle and the Royal Mile. The building was designed by the 19th century architect William Henry Playfair. The library is situated in what was formerly the Free High Church, and its splendid library hall retains many of the original church furnishings, such as the ten stained glass windows.
Itinerary Depart Appleton Tower by ‘walking bus’ at 1445. Tour ends approximately 1600. Participants make own arrangements after tour.
Noreen and Kenneth Murray Library
Opened in 2012, the Noreen and Kenneth Murray Library holds the University of Edinburgh’s principal printed book collections in biology, chemistry, engineering, geosciences, mathematics, physics and statistics as well as the Edinburgh Mathematical Society’s book collection.
Itinerary Depart Appleton Tower by taxi at 1445. Return by taxi to Appleton Tower by approximately 1700. (If larger numbers sign up for this tour, transport may done by bus instead.)
Royal Botanic Gardens (This tour is now fully booked)
Founded in 1670, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh started life as a Physick Garden. The Garden’s Library holds Scotland’s national collection of botanical and horticultural literature with more than 60,000 books including herbals dating back to the 15th century. The collection also includes more than 150,000 volumes of journals, a significant collection of original botanical artworks and the Garden’s Archives which record the history of the Garden and many of the plant collectors that have been associated with it over its 345 year history.
Itinerary Depart Appleton Tower by bus at 1445. Return by bus to Appleton Tower by approximately 1730.
Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh (This tour is now fully booked)
The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh was established by Royal Charter from King Charles II in 1681. Its Library is the oldest, and the largest, medical library in Scotland, and one of the largest in the United Kingdom.
Itinerary Depart Appleton Tower by bus at 1445. Participants make own transport arrangements after tour. The RCPE is in the city centre, so following the tour, participants can conveniently take advantage of the many restaurants and do some sight-seeing.
Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh (CANCELLED)
This tour has had to be cancelled due to building work. We have contacted those signed up to offer alternative tour options.
The Signet Library is the home of the Society of Writers to Her Majesty’s Signet, one of the oldest surviving legal bodies in the world. Its beautiful rooms on Parliament Square opened in 1815, but the library itself and its collections are far older and today serve lawyers and law firms worldwide. In addition to legal books, journals and ephemera dating back to 1500, the library has rich collections in Scottish history, literature and geography, and an art collection featuring Allan Ramsay, Henry Raeburn, the Elder and Younger Scougals and others.
Itinerary Depart Appleton Tower by ‘walking bus’ at 1445. Tour ends approximately 1600. Participants make own transport arrangements after tour.
Tour on Saturday 13 June (This tour is now fully booked)
A visit to St Andrews and the East Neuk of Fife, including a visit to chance to see some of the treasures of the University of St Andrews Special Collections. Cost of transport is covered by the £40 fee, but lunch is not included in this fee.
Itinerary The bus will leave (promptly) from the outside of the Appleton Tower at 9.30am. The tour starts with a visit to the Special Collections unit in Martyrs Kirk at 11.00am where there will be a talk and display of some of our oldest and most interesting science and medicine treasures.
From 12noon until 2pm there will be a chance to explore St Andrews and find some lunch. There are a number of options depending on what you want to do. You can visit the Old Course and see the Home of Golf and wander down to the West Sands to see where the iconic beach scene from Chariots of Fire was filmed. You can visit the Castle and Cathedral and perhaps climb St Rules Tower for panoramic views. If shopping is your thing, then St Andrews has some lovely independent shops and a famous ice-cream seller.
From 2.00-3.30pm we will travel along to the scenic East Neuk of Fife visiting at least one of the villages depending on time.
We return to the Appleton Tower in Edinburgh at 5.00pm
