Much to the surprise of most members of the Bamboo team, response to the call for participation has been far greater than expected. To date, well over 80 institutions and organizations have agreed to participate in one of the four instances of Workshop 1, "Understanding Scholarly Practice." With the Berkeley workshop complete, both the Chicago and Princeton workshops full and the Paris workshop filling fast, the Project Team will be taking a closer look at the workshop program to figure out how to capture and incorporate the broad interest across institutions and organizations without slowing the planning process.

"A lot was learned during Workshop 1a, and we've made some changes to future workshops in response to the feedback we received from the Berkeley participants," says Chad Kainz, Co-Director of Project Bamboo. "Our model is based on group discussion that provides material for subsequent workshops. However, with so many interested parties, we may need to get a bit more creative in figuring out how to incorporate input from the ever-growing list of institutions and organizations that want to take part in the project."

Given the tight scheduling early in the project, the focus right now is moving ahead with both the Chicago and Paris workshops and keeping the project on track. "After Paris, we will take a good look at what we've done and adjust the plan accordingly."

Registration is now open for the fourth instance of Workshop One, 1d, which will be held at on July 14-16. Special thanks to Center for Arts & Cultural Policy Studies at Princeton for helping sponsor the workshop.

The addition of a fourth workshop is welcomed as the Chicago workshop 1c is rapidly filling to capacity and registration has shifted to a waiting list. Institutions and organizations who formally register for the workshop will be notified by the Bamboo staff if they have a confirmed space.

To accommodate a wider range of institutions, the Bamboo Leadership Council agreed to add a fourth instance of Workshop 1, "Understanding Arts and Humanities Scholarship." The new workshop, Workshop 1d, is planned for July 14-16 and will be held on the East Coast. Location information will be posted as soon as it becomes available so teams can plan accordingly.

Institutions and organizations interested in participating in the Bamboo Planning Project are invited to formally join the effort by registering their team for one of the offerings of Workshop One, "Understanding Arts and Humanities Scholarship." Although we encourage teams to attend a workshop together, we realize that individual schedules may not allow that. As a result, your team members may attend separate workshops by selecting "Special Request" in the form and detailing your request in the comments field at the end of the application.

To register, visit the Join Us section of the site.

We are pleased to announce that the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation decided to fund the 18-month Bamboo Planning Project. The announcement came via email on Friday, March 14, and was received with great enthusiasm on both the University of California, Berkeley, and University of Chicago campuses.

Work has begun on planning and scheduling the series of workshops outlined in the proposal, the first of which will be offered on April 28-30, 2008, on the Berkeley campus. Interested institutions and organizations are encouraged to contact the Project Bamboo team for more information on how to participate.

On February 28, 2008, the Bamboo Planning Project was presented to attendees of the 2008 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Research in Information Technology Retreat at Princeton, NJ. Chad J. Kainz, University of Chicago, and David A. Greenbaum, University of California, Berkeley, presented an overview of the proposal and answered questions regarding Bamboo and the project direction if it were funded by the Foundation.