Colour, Glorious Colour

(With apologies to the musical Oliver!.)

Last weekend I visited Vancouver Island as part of a six-day trip to meet friends of the Faculty of Science. A highlight of the trip was the woefully short 30 minutes I had to tour Butchart Gardens (just north of Victoria).

The gardens were a visual orgy of colour; a sight for sore eyes. To put this into context, you need to understand that Edmonton has had an awful spring. March and April featured almost daily snow, and it is only in the past week that the weather has become consistently nice. But now the white snow is being replaced by the brown grass. Because spring was delayed, we have yet to have leaves emerge on the trees or any flowers bloom. Even a short visit to Butchardt was enough to excite the soul and inspire the imagination.

So, for all you colour-starved Albertans, enjoy the magnificent flowers of Butchart Gardens.

Part of the Sunken Gardens, a former limestone quarry.

Another view of the Sunken Gardens.

Even garbage containers are an excuse for a flower pot!

The dancing water show in the Sunken Gardens.

Library Love

Okay, so maybe I am weird, but I love libraries. But not just any library. It has to have the right ambiance. I like beautiful (usually old) buildings that house beautiful (usually old) books, maps, and ephemera. Seeing these treasures from the past excites me in some primitive way. I usually don't get the same feeling from, say, museums. For me, it seems the old books are fundamental to my DNA in an odd and inexplicable way. Whatever. Thus you won't be surprised to know that on a recent business trip I had to spend some time in a library.

The Rauner Special Collections Library at Dartmouth College (Hanover, New Hampshire) holds a special place for me because of my interest in the polar regions. It is home to the amazing collection of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, an Icelandic-born Canadian who led major exploration and scientific expeditions to the Canadian Arctic in the early 20th century. After his exploring days were over, he began collecting anything to do with the polar (north and south) regions. He became obsessed with his collection, adding anything of value that he could find. He had a sense for which books would eventually be important, so he acquired every copy of those books that he could find and afford. His wife once described their financial situation as being "book poor" – all their disposable cash went into feeding Vilhjalmur's obsession.

The Rauner Special Collections Library (thedartmouth.com)

The Rauner Special Collections Library is a fitting place to house the Dartmouth rare book collection including the Stefansson library. The building isn't too old, but it hasn't been polluted with modern-day whiz-bang architectural design. It is tasteful and austere. Inside, however, it is impressive. There is a giant "cube" at one end of the building that contains the rare books in a special climate-controlled environment. In front of this is a well-lit cavernous room for examining the book treasures. It is an inspiring environment for examining precious rare books.
 

Inside the Rauner Special Collections Library (dartmouth.org)

When you enter the library, the first thing you see is a beautiful display case containing a single treasure that sets the tone for your journey. John James Audobon was an ornithologist who over the period 1827-1839 produced a multi-volume masterpiece, The Birds of America. "The 3 1/2-foot-tall books feature hand-colored prints of all the species known to Audubon in early 19th-century North America. Audubon insisted on the book's large format – printed on the largest handmade sheets available at the time – because of his desire to portray the birds in their actual size and natural habitat. He found creative ways to paint them to fit the page, including showing large species feeding with their necks bent" (huffingtonpost.com). Below is a photograph of the page that was open the day that I visited (apologies for the light, but there was nothing I could do about it).

A page from Audobon's The Birds of America

With over 400 hand-done illustrations, the production values were high and the number of copies, small. On January 20, 2012, a copy of Audobon's book sold for $7.9 million (US). With rare books, condition is everything. A presumably nicer copy sold in December 2010 for $11.5 million.
 
I spent time looking at some of the rare items in the Stefansson collection. Ernest Shackleton is a famous Antarctic explorer. On his 1907-09 expedition, he came within 100 miles of reaching the South Pole. Realizing the precariousness of his situation, he wisely turned back and lived to tell the tale. (His successor, Robert Falcon Scott, did not turn back and paid the consequences.) While in the Antarctic, Shackleton and his team created a book, Aurora Australis, a labor of love as they whiled away the long winter hours. Possibly as many as 100 copies were produced. Below is a photograph of the title page and an interior page (with Shackleton's signature). In June 2007, a copy of the book sold for 43,200 British pounds.
 

Aurora Australis

Perhaps Shackleton's most famous expedition was his most famous failure. On his 1914-17 journey to cross the Antarctic continent, his ship became beset in ice and eventually crushed. The story of their miraculous escape over hundreds of miles of ice and the harrowing open-boat journey to safety is considered one of the greatest survival stories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton gives you the basic outline, but without the drama). At the library, I held in my hands the personal diary of Thomas Ordes-Lee, a member of Shackleton's crew.

 

Reading Ordes-Lee's diary

A page from Ordes-Lee's diary showing a map of Elephant Island, where he and most of the crew spent several miserable months waiting for rescue

Sadly, I had only a few hours to spend seeing the Stefansson collection. I will return to Dartmouth sometime soon. Who else would plan a holiday around visiting a library? As I said at the beginning of this post, maybe I am weird...

California Calling

February 13-20 I was in California meeting alumni of the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Science. It was a fabulous trip packed with engaging meetings every day. Our alumni have fascinating stories of success and failure, some of which include:

• A computer scientist who was the Chief Technology Officer at a company that recently sold for over $1 billion.
• A biologist who went on to develop fundamental technology that is widely deployed around the world today. For this work he has received numerous international accolades.
• A general science graduate who reinvented himself designing consumer products. The first creation under his newly created brand name launches in a few months.
• A computer scientist who became a highly sought after legal consultant. His job is to understand intricate computer technology and explain it in easily understood terms to the lawyers. For that, he is handsomely paid.
• A science graduate who created a philanthropic research organization that is having global impact.
• A mathematician who has lived the start-up company rollercoaster, winning and losing vast fortunes several times. He says his next fortune is just around the corner.
• A chemist who made major research contributions that led to the development and commercialization of drugs to treat well-known diseases.
• A computer scientist who has been laid off “maybe six times”, the result of joining unsuccessful startup companies. He is still waiting for his home run.
• A physicist who, well, won the Nobel Prize.
• A mathematician who reinvented herself several times and now is the president of a well-known organization.
• A computer scientist who had a successful technology career, but then decided to create a company to parlay his vision of the future into a commercial product. He sold the company last year and now is a “single digit millionaire”. He is already looking forward to his next startup company.
• Recent graduates who are starting their Silicon Valley adventure in high-tech companies such as Google and Yahoo.

All of them spoke fondly of their time at the University of Alberta. Some of their warmest memories include the collegial atmosphere at the University, their graduate supervisor, and – go figure – snowy winters. Many of them are back in Edmonton occasionally to visit family and friends. For alumni abroad who plan to visit Edmonton, please let me know – we would be delighted to give you a tour of the new Science building, the Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences (CCIS).

A word of warning: Although some might think that spending a week in California in February is a junket, guess again. Each day involved numerous meetings with alumni, usually separated by long drives. I found the schedule to be quite tiring, often starting with an early breakfast meeting and going to a late dinner engagement. And while the food was excellent, it was rich and not my normal fare. I gained almost five pounds and am still battling to lose it.

Booked Up

I love books and I love to read them.

To many readers the sentence above may seem odd; the first half could be redundant. Most people would simply write, “I love to read books” and leave it at that. But I actually love books – not the modern print-a-million-copies editions; the original antiquarian volumes. I can appreciate the beauty and artistry that went in to creating a, say, pre-1850 book. I love to look at the fine leather bindings, feel the texture of the paper, be inspired by the artistry of the drawings (this is the pre-camera era), admire the large fold-out maps, and wallow in the scent that is unique to old tomes. I can appreciate the craftsmanship that went in to creating a fine book, such as the leather tooling and the hand colored plates (making each copy of the book unique).

As a young boy, I voraciously devoured all the books I could find at my school library on the subject of geographic exploration. As I grew older, I became fixated on reading about discovery of the Polar Regions. Until 1985, I did not do much about my interest other than visiting the library and buying the occasional book. For my birthday that year, my parents gave me a book on exploration in the Canadian Arctic that was published in the 1860s. I was intoxicated with the look, feel, and smell of this relic from a bygone era. I had in my hands a piece of history that “lived” through an important era of polar history, including the mapping of the Canadian Arctic, the first traversal of the North-west Passage, and the discovery of the North (and South) Pole(s). This book was a witness to an era that I knew so much about. It deserved my respect.

I was hooked, and quickly discovered that there were antiquarian bookstores in Edmonton. I started buying old books to do with polar exploration. I could now read (and admire) the original source, not a modern copy/interpretation. And as I did so, I began to fall in love with old books in general. It did not matter what the subject matter was. If it was old, then it had a story to tell.

On every trip that I make, I do my research to find all the antiquarian bookstores in the area, and carefully map out a travel route to reach as many of them as is possible. I troll the web daily looking for new items coming available for sale. Annually I make trips to Toronto in October and California in February for antiquarian book fairs. London has a superb show in June (only made it once) and New York in April (never been, alas).

I spent five hours at the California Book Fair (San Francisco) last week. There were almost 200 vendors selling an impressive array of old books and ephemera. Some dealers had items for sale from the late 1400s – volumes that were printed a scant few years after the invention of the printing press. (At the London fair two years ago, you could purchase pages from a Gutenberg bible; a single page was too rich for me.) Others had more recent stock, such as mint condition, first edition copies of books by John Steinbeck, Ian Fleming, J.R.R. Tolkien, and a host of other 20th century authors. (Of interest that although a book may be rare, a mint condition dust jacket may be even rarer.)

A view of the California Antiquarian Book Fair exhibits.

There were relatively few books available at the fair that matched my narrow field of collecting interest. But if you had come with me, perhaps I might have been able to interest you in buying… First editions of Captain James Cook’s three voyages in matching leather binding? George Vancouver’s monumental mapping expedition to the west coast of Canada? John Franklin’s two land expeditions to the northern coast of Canada? A signed copy of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s first trip to the Antarctic? All were available for purchase, with four and five digit price tags. Here’s a quiz for you: which one had a price tag that was almost six digits?

A typical booth at the book fair.

Although I did not buy anything this year at this year’s fair, I still enjoyed the time I spent looking for treasures, talking with book dealers, and admiring the incredible books on display. My hunt was not in vain. At a bookstore in Oakland I found two polar exploration books from the early 1900s: both in excellent condition, one with a rare dust jacket, both were signed by the authors, and both were at a bargain price. That was a very good day!

Spectacular hand-coloured illustrations.

Bragging Rights

I have a great job. I get to brag about the Faculty of Science.

The Faculty of Science at the University of Alberta is one of the best in Canada. By some metrics we might be number two, but by all meaningful metrics we are in the top five. Our strong reputation nationally translates into international recognition.  It is a privilege to be part of a team whose reach extends literally around the world.

In December, I participated in the annual review of performance for all the professors in Science. Reading through the annual reports of 293 faculty members was the highlight of my first six months as Dean. I had anecdotal evidence of many exciting research initiatives but to read all the details was eye-opening. The Faculty of Science is delivering outstanding research and teaching. I know. I have the data.

On the research side, some of the interesting points include:

• Professors averaged roughly five refereed papers per person (no double counting of papers with multiple authors).
• Over 27% of the journal papers produced are considered to be in the top 10% of the publication venues in that area (as measured by impact factor).
• We had one researcher with 101 refereed journal papers. Okay, so that number is a bit misleading since he is a member of a consortium and all members get their name on the papers. Still 101 entries on your CV for one year is impressive!
• Science researchers brought in over $260,000 of research funding per person; roughly $50,000 per person more than our counterparts at the University of British Columbia.
• Our faculty won numerous international, national, and provincial awards. For example, we had two new Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada. Don Page (black holes) and John England (Arctic) were deservingly recognized. As another example, Phil Currie’s work on paleontology landed him the prestigious Explorer’s Club Medal.

Our faculty members also teach (we are, after all, a research AND teaching institution). One of the questions asked of students is to rate the excellence of teaching in a course on a scale of 1.0 (poor) to 5.0 (outstanding). The average rating over all instructors in the Faculty of Science was 4.5. 4.5??? That number is unbelievably high, especially when you consider that there are always some outliers. The scary thing is that over the last five years this number has been slowly going up. It’s hard to believe that it could go much higher!

The above is a snippet of data that demonstrates how strong the Faculty of Science is. I am delighted to be working with colleagues who are recognized around the world for their leading-edge research. My job is to steer us in a direction that allows us to be even better than we are today. I am confident that we are on the move.

I have a right to brag. I am the Dean of an outstanding team of professors, research associates, research assistants, graduate students, undergraduate students, instructors, and support staff that are making their mark on the world. Thank you for your commitment to excellence.