SciBarCamp 2009: Registration is open!

Registration is open for this year's edition of SciBarCamp Toronto. Last year was a blast.

This year, it's in collaboration with the Science Rendezvous series of events in and around Toronto.

So what's SciBarCamp?

SciBarCamp is a gathering of scientists, artists, and technologists for a day of talks and discussions. The second SciBarCamp event will take place at Hart House at the University of Toronto on May 9th, 2009, with an opening reception on the evening of May 8th. The goal is to create connections between science, entrepreneurs and local businesses, and arts and culture.

One of the topics we will be exploring this year is "Open Science", but we welcome any suggestions from participants. After all, in the tradition of BarCamps (see BarCamp.org for more information), the program is decided by the participants at the beginning of the meeting, in the opening reception on May 8th. SciBarCamp will require active participation; while not everybody will present or lead a discussion, everybody will be expected to contribute substantially - this will help make it a really creative event.

The participant list is already up and growing and there is some preliminary information on the program. If there's a topic you're interested in, add it here.

One of the organizers, Eva Amsen, has more on her blog. There is also, of course, a Friendfeed room and a Twitter hashtag.

Here & There

A bunch of items from around the web:

• BoingBoing points us to Vanity Fair's How the Web Was Won: An Oral History of the Internet.
  

  This year marks the 50th anniversary of an extraordinary moment. In 1958 the United States government set up a special unit, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (arpa), to help jump-start new efforts in science and technology. This was the agency that would nurture the Internet.
  
  This year also marks the 15th anniversary of the launch of Mosaic, the first widely used browser, which brought the Internet into the hands of ordinary people.

  
  This one jumps right to the front of my reading list!
  
  
• One again, thanks to BoingBoing we see that there's a new book on the future of music: SOUND UNBOUND: Sampling Digital Music and Culture Edited by Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid, Foreword by Cory Doctorow, Introduction by Steve Reich. Oddly, and ironically, you can't download all the articles for free off the internet. You actually have to buy the book.
  
  
• Sustainability and Revenue Models for Online Academic Resources by Kevin Guthrie, Rebecca Griffiths, and Nancy Maron looks very interesting and important. There aren't too many more important questions in academic librarianship these days than, "What's worth paying for?" Finding sustainable business models for those resources in a world of Free is going to be a challenge in the medium to long term. This report looks very interesting and will merit a close examination.
  
  I'll excerpt the same bit as Open Access News.

  ...We define ‘sustainability’ as having a mechanism in place for generating, or gaining access to, the economic resources necessary to keep the intellectual property or the service available on an ongoing basis. This does not...presuppose any particular method for revenue generation: an Open Access resource, for example, will have a different set of revenue options available to it than a project that is willing to charge a subscription fee, but both should be expected to develop a sustainable economic model....
  
  It does not matter if a resource is subscription-based, Open Access, or supported by budgets of a host institution. For any site, users have a choice in what they pay for, where they spend their time online, or whether to volunteer their time to help support a project. Each project must build sources of advantage that make it valuable and attractive to users, and find ways to sustain these advantages over time....

  
  
  
• Cool article on SciBarCamp by Jim Thomas!
  

  ‘It’s a huge improvement on the regular science conference format – those usually suck the life and joy out of these things,’ says SciBarCamper Paul Bloore, a local software entrepreuner. His friend Melina Strathopoulos concurs. ‘Its a literal “confer-ence” where people are actually conferring,’ she points out, ‘rather than just an “attend-ance”.

  
  Thanks to Jim for bringing it to our attention on the SciBarCamp group on Nature Network.
  
  
• What is the Ecological Footprint of Disneyland?
  

  Having just returned from a visit to the magic kingdom, the above was a question that continually haunted my consciousness. Disneyland was remarkably pristine in that cookie cutter, artificial, yet aesthetically pleasing way, but it must be a major sink in terms of waste, energy consumption, carbon emissions, etc.
  
  Or is it? Maybe in terms of footprint, by applying its incredible density (>15 million visitors each year!), it comes out not looking so bad?
  
  It should be noted that Disney appears to be viewing environmental issues in a relatively serious manner, with a number of programs in place. Here are a few factoids I can provide that would support this notion.

SciBarCamp summary & impressions: Sunday

So, on to Sunday! I have to admit, that getting to the conference for 9am on a Sunday, given that the TTC only starts running at 9am was just more trouble that it was worth. So, I aimed to get there by 10am and I was still able to enjoy a full day of discussion and enjoyment.

(Link to Participants list. Link to Sunday's program, which was emailed on Saturday night. It's also worth noting that sessions changed, combined, morphed during the conference, so if I've got participants wrong below, I apologize.)

Like I mentioned, I only arrived at 10am, just in time to catch Part Two of Eva Amsen's "Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Science." This time she enlisted 3 panelists to help her narrow down the suggestions that people wrote down on her poster the previous day. And narrow they did. Ultimately, they came up with a very short list of 3 really important things. Which I can't remember any more. Fortunately, Eva is a lot younger than I am so if you're reading this Eva, please drop a comment! Anyways, the session worked really well, with a lot of great input from the panelists and the audience.

Next up was the "Art vs. Science" panel with a whole cast of characters: Roberta Buiani, Bill Leeming, Dave Kemp, Scott Menary and Enrico Lappano. Good wide ranging discussion here about various projects. Very interesting was the film clip of a documentary currently in post-production about science, art and science in society.

Wendy Banks (of the Toronto Public Library) and I moderated a session on the future of libraries. With Wendy coming from the public library perspective and me from academia, the session covered a lot of ground. Mostly, people wanted to know what libraries were for in the digital age. Peter Watts may have amiably yanked my chain a bit, but I think (hope?) I was able to make a case for libraries having a role in mentoring and helping students navigate an increasingly complex information environment. We also discussed the digital divide, digitizing collections and the fact that sometimes your institution may already have what you need, you just don't know it yet. I'd definitely like to thank Wendy (whom I'd never met before Friday!) for co-moderating this session with me.

After my session ended I headed for the Jen Dodd's session on the conference itself. A lot of the minor glitches or issues I've mentioned already were brought up, but nothing major at all. Certainly the huge consensus in the room was, "Same time next year!" Unfortunately, it also seems that the conference ran a not-insignificant deficit, so any attendees that are reading this can feel free to contact the organizers if they want to send a little cash their way.

Finally, the closing session was Lee Smolin on "What is Mathematics?" Opening up with Rick Sacks talking about how he used math to create his 10 Planets percussion album was a stroke of genius. Rick's discussion and demo was fascinating and weird, enough to make me want to check out his music some more. Smolin was, not surprisingly, mystifying in a compelling and provocative way. What is math? Well, what is "What?" What is "is?" Food for thought, for sure.

Most of all, I like to extend hearty congratulations on a job well done to the organizers/advisors: Jen Dodd, Eva Amsen, Jamie McQuay, Michael Nielson, Karl Schroeder and Lee Smolin. I met a lot of great people at the conference, did a lot of cool networking, presented twice when I was only expecting to present once (on the Future of Libraries), watched my son have a blast on Saturday, seeing how at ease he felt among the attendees. It was open and friendly, not intimidating at all even though there were clearly some scarily accomplished people there. Here's to another edition of SciBarCamp next year!

SciBarCamp tshirt

Had there been a SciBarCamp tshirt, this would have been perfect:

SciBarCamp summary & impressions: Saturday

Getting up for a conference on a Saturday is always tough. When it's in you home city and you have to get somewhere downtown for 9am, well, that counts as cruel and unusual punishment. But, for SciBarCamp, it was well worth the pain and anguish. It was even worth the pain and anguish of dragging my 15-year-old son Sam out of bed and onto the Subway with me. Organizers Michael Nielson and Jen Dodd know that I have a teen aged son who's interested in science so they suggested I bring him along as a way of judging if this kind of even might be interesting to high schoolers. As it turned out, Sam had a great time, and even asked a few really great questions (it makes a Dad proud!). He was a bit tired and ready to leave by about 3.30, but he really enjoyed the experience.

So, on to Saturday! (Link to Participants list. It's also worth noting that sessions changed, combined, morphed during the conference, so if I've got participants wrong below, I apologize.)

Like I said in the previous post, the Saturday program was mailed to us during the night.

Corie Lok of Nature Network was scheduled to speak about Science 2.0 first thing on Saturday. As it happened, while Corie and I were talking on Friday night, she asked me if I wouldn't mind joining her up on the stage and helping moderate the discussion. Of course, I said yes. And it went extremely well, too. Corie and I only talked for about 5-8 minutes, with Corie setting the stage and me briefly mentioning some specific tools and trends. After that, in true unconference spirit, the rest of the 40 minute slot was filled with a lively discussion about the impact of these new tools on the practice of science. At first, we talked a bit about JoVE and then we drifted into talking about lab wikis and electronic lab notebooks.

There was only one programming track in the morning. The other items from the morning were Daniel Gottesman's mind expanding talk on quantum mechanics and computing which I think had a few people scratching their heads -- but in a good way. Thinking about hard stuff is good for our brains and this was certainly the hardest stuff of the weekend. That was followed by a provocative session by Andrew Hessel and Jim Thomas about the pros and cons of synthetic biology; lots of issues to think about, for sure. Eva Amsen next gave the first half of her two-part talk on "Ten Thinks Everyone Should Know about Science!" where she talked about what she hoped to accomplish with the project and invited everyone to make suggestions on a poster board during the rest of the day. She promised to come back and Sunday and talk again about the results.

Lunch was included in the conference; on Saturday is was sandwiches, coffee and juice and lots of opportunity to talk. During lunch, some EE students from UofT demoed their solar car outside.

The afternoon was a bit of a dog's breakfast. The scheduling broke down and the four function rooms quickly got out of phase. With a variety of session lengths (20 or 40 minutes) and no time alloted between sessions, the best plan was probably just to pick a room and stay in it! It's worth noting that this aspect was vastly better on Sunday as the organizers more strictly enforced sessions lengths.

In the afternoon, I caught only bits and pieces of a couple of the sessions so I'll only mention the ones I saw in their entirety. Diane Nalini and Lee Smolen talked about "Can Technology Make Us Happy?" and, not surprisingly, there was no consensus. Like some of the sessions, a lot of the discussion ranged around definition. What is "technology", what does "make" mean, what is "happy," and who are "us." Old vs. young, techie vs. luddite, these were some of the issues that came up.

Rob Sawyer took the opportunity of the conference to workshop some of the plot points in his upcoming trilogy on the WWW gaining consciousness to ask some questions of us, like what is consciousness? And how would we know if the web had it? Good discussion with, again, no firm outcome.

Diane Nalini's "Physics through Music" was a great session as she talked about some of the pedagogical tools she uses in her classes to teach physics using an extra sense -- hearing! Springs, software, singing, sine waves. Compelling stuff.

The last item on Saturday's agenda was deciding the program for Sunday. I ended up proposing a session on the Future of Libraries with Wendy Banks of the Toronto Public Library. But more on that tomorrow. It's worth noting that the fluid nature of the unconference format meant that I presented twice -- both times with people I had never met before the conference.

After all the sessions were done, we broke for dinner. I ended up at a Ethiopian restaurant with a bunch of people and then walking to the Duke of York with Mark Tovey. Another organizing glitch was that the 5pm ending didn't flow naturally into dinner or meeting up at the pub at 8pm.

SciBarCamp summary & impressions: Friday

I was at the inaugural of the SciBarCamp all this past weekend and I have to admit that I'm just starting to recover from all the fun, networking and stimulation! The conference ran from 7pm Friday until about 5pm Sunday, with the attendance peaking at around 100 on Friday night and Saturday afternoon.

Overall, it was a great event with a couple of minor growing pains-type issues with scheduling.

It was an unconference, so the program was collaboratively set by all the participants, starting on Friday evening.

Actually, before going much further, I should probably just summarize the conference starting on Friday. We all arrived at the conference venue (Hart House at the University of Toronto) Friday evening with a cash bar and some snack ready for us. Once we had a chance to mingle a bit, the organizers introduced the event and told us how we would proceed with setting the program. First of all, every one gathered in a large 100-person circle and introduced themselves for 30 seconds or so, saying who they were and what they were interested in (this went surprisingly well, BTW, with almost no one rambling uncontrollably). Then, everyone that wanted to present on Saturday was invited to get one of the Session Description forms lying around and fill in some details about what they wanted to talk about.

Once that was done, people needed to paste their forms on one of the easels dotted around the hall. After a while, we were told to vote on the sessions that we wanted to see by filling in little circles on the forms. As opposed to trying to judge "quality," this gave an indications of what people wanted to see and an idea of which room to assign to which session. The organizers promised that they would try to let everyone that wanted to present to have a chance during the weekend. After the voting, the organizers did take a minute to try and figure out what the first session would be at 9am Saturday so a) the presenters would know and b) people could judge if they were interested enough to come in that early. They also emailed the complete Saturday schedule at some point early Saturday morning so we could check it out and print it off before coming in.

This whole process worked relatively well. It may have been a bit more involved than it needed to be but the plus side was that the session building exercise also worked great as a way to get people to mingle and discuss.

So, that's Friday.