Well then, you are an Alumnus and are on their books. And if you have ever had anything published, be it a book, poetry, an article, you are eligible to join the Alumni Authors' group. Membership is free and the OU library is showcasing the works of its Alumni in the brand spanking new building.
I attended the celebratory lunch yesterday and was given the tour. The new library was very impressive, and, if you're registered on a course, you get to use the virtual library. One thing that caught my attention as I walked from the car park to the library was the BBC complex that is opposite the library. I'd never noticed it before.
How was the event? I was bored for much of it, but that could have had something to do with the fact that I'm under-the-weather. (Must look up the origins of that phrase, it surely has a nautical base?) I was extremely tired by the time I got there. Lunch was a buffet affair and suffered from a lack of chairs and no side tables, so food plate and drink container had to be balanced in one hand, the other being full of Welcome Pack. I did perk up at the sight of the first speaker, a prof. from the Philosophy department who bore a striking resemblance to a young Rober Redford. Why this prof. was giving the opening address on Authors' Rights God alone knows, but he was very easy on the eye.
There was a good turn out of Alumni Authors. One woman flew in from Zurich, where she works as a Medical translator. Her published work is the poetry of her Great Grandfather who was a lay preacher at the London Mission in the early 1800s. She writes poetry herself but had only discovered her ancestor's poems on the death of her mother in 1994. There was a box containing Great Grandad's writings. I thought that was a lovely story.