BOBCATSSS 2009

People in BOBCATSSS seem to have adopted the conference theme “Challenges for the New Information Professional” well.

Professor Tom Wilson, as the first keynote speaker, headlined his speech plainly “Thinking about the future” and put an emphasis on the rapid growth of population and the number of Internet users in developed countries. As hundreds of millions of people get access to the highway of information, professionals of our business shall have big new challenges, he stated.

The second keynote speaker, doctor Kimmo Tuominen, spoke mostly about participation. Mr Tuominen presented bold metaphors by, for instance, building allegories between information science, punk rock and Star Wars phenomenon. The third keynote speaker, professor Fernanda Ribeiro, pondered about the diversity and interdisclipinarity of information science by, for example, highlighting facts such as the growing number of new profession titles on information field.

For Thursday the BOBCATSSS caravan moved to other side of the city, to the Faculdade de Letras do Porto, but thinking about the future has continued as lively as it started on Wednesday.

One of Thurday’s workshop presenters was Aneta Ostrowska from Poland with the topic “WHOIS Librarian 2.0 − creating a characteristic of librarian of the future”. As a result of one hour’s mindstorm the participants could present some kind of image of librarian 2.0. According to that, the professional has to be very flexible and has to have good skills in communication, communicative technology, pedagogy, and many, many other features.

Aneta turned out to be one of those who try to get the maximum out of BOBCATSSS. After her workshop she just grabbed some breath and coffee before rushing into next workshop which was held by Tord Høivik from Oslo University College. The topic was “Counting the traffic − with students as observers” and it was about usage of public libraries in Norway.

“I like to do it in a bit different way than the others. That’s why the participants are not going to sit here all the 90 minutes, instead they go to library for a while to seek information”, Tord explained before the workshop. The concept seemed to work well.

“Really nice to have some action during the workshop, something very different if you compare to mine”, Aneta thanked after the session. “Sure I can take some advantage of this information in my studies in the future.”

During the two days of BOBCATSSS ’09 there has been approximately forty presenters giving speeches, introducing posters and leading workshops. There is still a lot to come, not to mention the guided tours and evening parties. Let’s see if there will be again an after party for over thirty people (like Finns and Germans had on Wednesday).

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.

The organising team in Tampere held its last meeting yesterday in snowy Finland before travelling to Porto.

Most of the team is heading to Portugal this Sunday, and we are staying for seven days, some even longer.

This blog is going to be updated during the symposium too, as time allows, so do not stop following. Another way to keep up is to look at the photos in Flickr (tag: bobcatsss2009).

Here we come!

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.

We recently received a web questionnaire from the organisers of BOBCATSSS 2011, which will be a cooperative effort between Austria and Hungary. The multiple-choice questionnaire was directed to the organisers. The questions and answers may still be of interest to the general audience as well, so I will take a look at some of them in some detail and provide commentary from my personal point of view.

(more…)

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.

The programme of the symposium has now been published. At least at the moment it is only available in PDF format: day 1, day 2, and day 3. There are three parts; one for each day of the symposium.

We still reserve the right to make changes, but there shouldn’t be any major ones. This means that you can start planning your own conference schedule. Abstracts and closer details will be published later.

Update 2008-12-19: All full papers, workshops and posters are now listed on one page in the programme section.

Greetings from Porto!

Breathtaking landscapes, delicious cuisine, and rich culture. Porto is such a wonderful city! That’s what I heard people say about Porto, and I just had to see it myself.

So, here I am, a Finnish information science student, a member of the BOBCATSSS 2009 organizing committee, having the time of my life in Porto. I arrived in Porto in August 2008, five months before my Finnish colleagues’ arrival.

Besides studying at the University of Porto and getting acquainted with the city, I’ve had the chance to get to know the Portuguese team members. By frequently being in contact with my Finnish colleagues, I believe, the communication between the two teams has improved. The organizers both in Finland and in Portugal are working hard on creating yet another great BOBCATSSS.

And I have to tell you, everything I heard about Porto beforehand is true. Porto is amazing and I’m sure you’ll love it too. Looking forward to seeing you in Porto in only 7 weeks!

Até já.

Johanna Varpila
Porto & Tampere