BOBCATSSS 2009

The website of the next BOBCATSSS symposium has recently opened! BOBCATSSS 2010 is to be held in Parma, Italy between the 25th and 28th of January 2010. Mark the dates in your calendar. The theme is “Bridging the digital divide: libraries providing access for all?”, and the call for papers is open until 15th of July 2009.

Further information and updates can be found at the BOBCATSSS 2010 website, and we recommend you to visit often or to subscribe to their RSS feed.

Regarding this BOBCATSSS 2009 website and its future: links to the full papers have been added to the abstracts page and to the list of full papers for easy access.

We will soon transfer an archived version of these pages to a new, permanent location (from www.bobcatsss2009.org to www.uta.fi/conference/bobcatsss2009). After the transition the old domain will redirect you to the new address for a while, but please update any links to point to the new location.

Updates to the content will not be made after the move.

We warmly welcome you to BOBCATSSS 2009! The symposium starts tomorrow, and here are a few points of notice:

• The first-night dinner is a social event which is only targeted to those who have paid the extra 5 euros.
• If you move by metro, the stop to leave is “I.P.O” for FEUP (days 1 and 3) and “Casa da Música” for FLUP (day 2).
• The addresses in the programme for FEUP were incorrect (days 1 and 3): the correct address is Faculdade de Engenharia (FEUP), Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n 4200-465.

If you want to make sure that you have been accepted to attend a workshop or a tour, you can now check your place in the listings. We will contact you by email as well if it looks like you will not have a place in an event. (The status view of the registration system may not show you the actual situation because many events have been overbooked.)

Lists of the attendees can be viewed here. The user name is ‘bobcatsss’, and the password is the beneficiary account number (beginning 4726…) from the invoice you received by email.

Dialog ProQuest will also hold a company workshop under the title Dialogclassicweb (day 2, starting at 14:00). To this workshop you can register on the spot.

Update: The overbooking was caused by the design of the registration system. During previous years there had been problems with people not paying or arriving, but still registering and taking up places in workshops and tours.

This is why we decided to let those in who paid first, also to encourage quick payments. Unfortunately this meant that registration to a certain event was only closed after it was full of participants who had paid; meanwhile, people could still register to the event.

So if attendants did not pay immediately after the registration, overbooking could happen.

We are proud to announce the keynote speakers of BOBCATSSS 2009! The speakers will present their ideas and visions relating to the themes of the symposium:

• Prof. Tom Wilson, the current holder of the BOBCAT of the year award. “Thinking about the future.”

• Dr. Kimmo Tuominen. ”Cognitive authority and Web 2.0”

• Prof. Fernanda Ribeiro. ”Information Science: from disciplinary unity to the diversity of the profession.”

We have also now published the preliminary programme (PDF) of the symposium.

The programme is the very first published version, and changes will very probably be made. It should, however, give you a glimpse of the events which will take place.