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We will soon transfer an archived version of these pages to a new, permanent location (from www.bobcatsss2009.org to www.uta.fi/conference/bobcatsss2009).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

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.

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The organising of a symposium such as BOBCATSSS requires efficient communication. Firstly, it is necessary to publish up-to-date information and instructions for the contributors and participants of the event. This website tries to answer those needs. Secondly, because not every question can be answered based on the information found on the website alone, email correspondence must also be handled. Thirdly, there is the issue of how to coordinate the functions between the organising teams in Porto and Tampere, that is, internal communication.

Fortunately, information technology comes to the rescue. Publishing and updating a website such as this can be done rather easily and inexpensively using readily available tools. Many of the external communication needs are handled by our web presence. Those that are not, require personalised treatment.

Writing replies to inquiries sent to the BOBCATSSS 2009 email address takes a lot of our time, especially now because of all kinds of questions concerning the registration. Unfortunately it can sometimes take a while for us to answer your questions, so please be patient. And please first try to find the answer by carefully reading the instructions presented on the website.

Internal communication within and between the Tampere and Porto groups is another matter altogether. The Tampere team gathers in person once or twice a week, Team Porto about once a month. The web learning environment Moodle is the primary tool which we use to coordinate activities and stay in touch. In addition to that, the teams in Porto and Tampere communicate by occasional instant messenger sessions and video conferences, plus email.

Team Tampere’s own IRC channel has proved invaluable especially when physical meetings are simply not possible: it functions as an excellent daily knowledge sharing environment of sorts, where e.g. answers to all kinds of pressing issues or questions can be collaboratively thought through, and feedback given.

There’s much more to organising a conference than meets the eye, including communication issues. All this work is meant to give you, the participants, the best experience possible!

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.

We have been adding new content and altogether new pages to the website. You can now read the frequently asked questions (and their answers), there’s information for the press, and you can get to know the organisers. A summary in Finnish is available, too.

The deadline for the sending of the extended abstracts is approaching! Please keep in mind that you can send your submission through the OpenConf system and still edit it until the deadline closes. See the contributions page for details.

June 12: Posters created by Team Porto have been added to the press page. Print them out and spread the word!

June 15: Most of the website has been translated into Portuguese.

June 17: Information added about the city, flights, hotels and hostels.

June 26: Some updates to the FAQ.

The BOBCATSSS 2009 website has now been redesigned with a new look and architecture! It’s now easier for us to add new sections and new information. Hopefully it will prove useful to you as well, the visitors and users of the site. We have, for example, added pages on sponsorship and the BOBCATSSS symposiums in general. There’s also more information on the Contributions page.

Content can be easily shared to various social networks by the ShareThis widget, which is located at the bottom of each page. You can buy BOBCATSSS ‘09 branded products or join the Facebook group. (By the way, don’t forget Virtual BOBCATSSS.)

There’s more to come. But if you have any feedback or other comments concerning the site, or other aspects of the symposium, add a comment or use our email address!

Timo, webmaster