One day in early August I saw someone on Twitter mention BookCamp Vancouver registration was open. Intrigued by the name, I went to see what it was about. Well, it turned out to be a one-day UNconference (modeled on BarCamp) about books and publishing and reading—“BookCamp Vancouver 2010 Unconference: Exploring New Ideas in Books, Publishing and the Future of Reading”—and it was being held at SFU downtown (so convenient!) and it was free (the perfect price for a perpetual student!). So I registered.

I figured at the very least I’d get an Absolute Blank article out of the deal.

In the end I found a supervisor for my committee (woohoo!), met TC’s current Best of the Boards winner in person, had a (much-needed) day away from working on comps essays and SSHRC proposal, got lots of great ideas, both about (e)books/writing/reading for my research and for generating support for Toasted Cheese, and yes, got more than enough material for an AB article. BookCamp ftw!

Unsurprisingly, when I sat down to write a post recapping the day, it ended up being more than a single post. So here’s my recap, broken up into six parts, article to come sometime in the future. Haven’t quite figured out the angle yet, but maybe a more general “what to expect at an unconference” kind of thing?

I’ve interspersed my notes—taken on my phone, haha! (is the use of electronic devices at a book conference ironic? discuss) and fleshed out here—with my tweets and some tweets from other attendees.

At #bcvan10 … first attempt at livetweeting! 9:37 AM Oct 1st via Seesmic for Android

Tomorrow: recap of first session.