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We will soon transfer an archived version of these pages to a new, permanent location (from www.bobcatsss2009.org to www.uta.fi/conference/bobcatsss2009).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.

Abstracts of the full paper presentations have now been published. They are listed in the new abstracts page in the programme section of the website. You can use your browser’s find function to search for names of the presentations or authors. Poster and workshop abstracts will follow.

The “List of full papers, workshops, posters” page now lists the posters by day.

Update: workshop and poster abstracts added.
Update 2009-01-14: abstracts have now been linked from the programme.

The registration system has now been closed as the official registration period ended. If you still wish to attend, please write to us by email, and we will see what we can do. In passing, there are still quite a few people who have not paid their invoices in due time.

Happy new year on behalf of the BOBCATSSS 2009 team members as well! We are back to work. There is still much to do, especially all kinds of practical matters. Final preparations are underway.

The programme of the symposium is now available as web pages, in addition to existing PDF files: day 1, day 2, and day 3. Abstracts of the presentations and further details will be added in the near future.

There is still time to register for BOBCATSSS 2009! We are planning to close the registration on the 9th of January 2009. If you have not paid your registration fee already, please do so as quickly as possible.

As a practical note, some of the workshops and tours have been overbooked due to our registration system. Therefore we cannot guarantee a place if you were a late payer. We will offer you a chance to check out if you have been accepted before the symposium starts.

Also, more information about the keynote speakers and their topics has been added.

As of this writing, three weeks after the registration system opened, BOBCATSSS 2009 has had over 160 registrations. This means that taken on face value, about 40 percent of the available tickets have been reserved. We have already received payments from half of those who are currently registered.

Please remember that as the places are secured only after we have received your payment, we cannot guarantee a place in a workshop or a guided tour if your payment is delayed.

If you or your organisation pays by bank transfer, it is very important that the details of payment are included, so that we can know who of the all registered persons has paid.

Update 2009-12-3: Over 56 percent of the tickets have been reserved.

Update 2009-12-11: We’re now at 66 percent.

Registration to BOBCATSSS 2009 has opened. All participants, including the presenters, are required to register. You can use PayPal (faster, the preferred method, major credit cards accepted) or bank transfer to pay for your ticket or tickets. Multiple tickets can be purchased at once.

Places for workshops (see the list of workshops) and city tours will be filled on first-come, first-served basis, and only a limited amount of tickets will be made available, so be quick.

The prices for students and professionals include the conference itself, a 3-day ticket for local transportation, social events in the evenings, lunches at the university, and guided visits.

Register now, we warmly welcome you to BOBCATSSS 2009!

Update: The full programme will be made available later. Tours will be held after the conference programme has ended for the day.

Programme: Some very preliminary information about the programme of the symposium can now be found at the new programme section of the website.

Templates, new information and instructions on how to send us your full paper, poster or workshop abstract of an accepted proposal can now be found on the contributions page. The deadline is 30 October 2008. In case you encounter any problems or have questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

The registration page has also opened. The actual registration period starts on 3 November 2008. But for now there’s information about the prices and what’s included.

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