About BOBCATSSS
BOBCATSSS is an annual symposium organised by students of universities with studies in Library and Information Sciences. The symposium was first held in Budapest in 1993 and the 2011 symposium will be the eighth BOBCATSSS symposium held in Hungary and nineteenth symposium in general.
The name comes from an acronym from the first letters of the nine cities of the universities that initiated the BOBCATSSS symposium in 1993: Budapest, Oslo, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Tampere, Stuttgart, Szombathely and Sheffield.
After 1993, members from the universities of Borås, Riga, Kharkiv, Moscow, Tallinn, Torun, Warsaw, Sofia, Ljubljana, Krakow, Bratislava, Prague, Osjiek, Zadar, Berlin and Potsdam also joined the network. In total, they represent twenty-five schools in nineteen countries all over Europe.
BOBCATSSS is under the auspices of EUCLID (http://euclid.hio.no/) and tries to bring a dialogue between information specialists, employees of information and library departments, teachers and researchers in information and library sciences and tomorrow’s professionals. The speeches and papers tackle subjects about the changes, obstacles and solutions in the library sector now and in the near future.
Students from at least two of the BOBCATSSS universities organise the symposium for any given year. There is always at least one university from both Eastern Europe and Western Europe represented in the group designated for organising BOBCATSSS. These students are responsible for every aspect of arranging the conference, from marketing and financing to logistics and abstract and paper management. The students are often able to integrate the work with BOBCATSSS as a part of their studies, as a course part of the curriculum.
The eighteenth BOBCATSSS symposium took place in Parma from January 25th - January 27th, 2010. The general topic of the conference was: BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE - LIBRARIES PROVIDING ACCESS FOR ALL?
The symposium was jointly organised by students and teachers of the University of Parma (Italy), the Manchester Metropolitan University (GB) and the Liverpool John Moores University (GB). Pictures can be found in our Parma-Gallery.
The 2011 conference
In 2011, the conference will be taking place in Szombathely, Hungary from January 31st to February 2nd. It is a cooperation between a team of students and teachers from Szombathely, Eisenstadt (Austria) and Oslo (Norway). The general topic will be: FINDING NEW WAYS.