Tuesday the 10th of August, Marte and Veronicha left Oslo by bus and arrived in Gothenburg early afternoon. We checked in at our hotel (Gothia Towers), which was actually in the same building as the conference center. For us, two students who are used to living in hostels, cabins and tents when travelling in Scandinavia, the hotel was awesome! Nicer than our own homes in Oslo, of course, the room was in tasteful white, grey and black, and the furniture was Swedish design (we suspect not from IKEA).
Funny thing, our American exhibitor neighbor was quite displeased with his room, and he told us why; There was no washcloth (in Scandinavia we use our hands to wash) and we didn’t have blankets to cover the bed (in Scandinavia we’re used to being cold, so we like to wrap ourselves in a nice, warm duvet at night). Additionally, when our lovely neighbor first came into his room, there was no electricity! At first he was annoyed and wondering what kind of hotel he had come to, when he found out he had to put his keycard in the light switch to turn the lights on. A so-called environmental friendly act.
But he had to admit that the towel warmer in the bathroom was decent. Then we had to admit that we didn’t know that was a towel warmer, I actually just thought the light bulb had made it hot, and that there might be a fire in the bathroom. Figures.
So day 1 we kind of hung out in our room (with a view of the Liseberg amusement park), got some material ready for our BOBCATSSS stand/exhibition/wooden table, and went to work the crowd at the IFLA night spot.
At 8 am on Wednesday morning we were able to put up our table and our poster. The Swedish Congress centre’s exhibition hall was huge, and compared to the other exhibitors, our stand was quite insignificant and located in the corner. We kind of felt like our stand was a mouse surrounded by elephants. The other exhibitors had walls, electricity and plenty of equipment (OCLC even constructed a tower), whereas we had a wooden table, two chairs and a poster. Luckily both IFLA and the people working there were taking good care of us, trying their best to make our stand as great as it could be. And luckily our neighbors, the previously mentioned American and a German woman, were really nice. The exhibition opened at 2 pm, and until then we rearranged our materials about a hundred times, and went to the exhibitors lounge to get free coffee.
When the exhibition hall finally opened some people thought we were an information desk because of our table and placement, but most were just curious about BOBCATSSS.
Our great big poster did the trick, and as soon as people were done staring at it, we smiled like never before, and told them all about our conference. We met people from all over the world, some had never heard about BOBCATSSS, and some were already very enthusiastic about the concept.
At 4 pm on Wednesday there was an exhibition reception with wine and snacks. We got a glass of red wine and some really good snacks. We had a shrimp and fish cheesecake and lefse with meat and salad. Yummy, way to go with the catering, IFLA! The exhibition reception made lots of new people come into the hall, so we passed out a bunch of leaflets and talked to a lot of nice people.
When sitting on a stand you have to keep on smiling to everyone, trying to make them come over to have a look and a chat. After smiling constantly for 6 hours during a day, your cheeks kind of start hurting. Or at least ours did. But it’s also a lot of fun, so you can’t really stop smiling if you want to either.
Unfortunately, since only two of us were able to go to the IFLA conference, we couldn’t go to any of the lectures or workshops, although we really wanted to. It was important to man the stand at all times, because people came by pretty frequently. Also, we couldn’t stay the whole conference as reality (read: paid work) called us back to Oslo on Friday morning.
But every day while we were at the conference we were at the IFLA night spot. The night spot/pub was located in (and outside of) the basement of the Gothenburg City Library. Every night we met new people to talk to about BOBCATSSS and other things, it was a lot of fun. We met some old friends from the BOBCATSSS 2010 symposium in Parma, and we also made some new.
It was nice to see that people were interested in our conference. We got a lot of cards, contacts and e-mail addresses. As students on a conference like IFLA’s, it’s a bit overwhelming with all the people and the size of it all, but it’s important to promote our (by comparison) little conference in the big LIS world. After experiencing how enthusiastic previous organizers, LIS professors, library associations and IFLA officers are about BOBCATSSS, we are even more engaged in making BOBCATSSS 2011 an amazing event. And we really think it’s that enthusiasm and that heart that people display when talking about BOBCATSSS, that makes people come back year after year after year to attend the conference. And also why it’s so much fun making the conference happen.
We really hope to see all of you BOBCATSSS enthusiasts and everyone else in Szombathely on January 31 next year.With all the nice people we met and both the IFLA and BOBCATSSS spirit in mind, we are inspired to make BOBCATSSS 2011 a truly great one.
On Friday, 14th of June, the Austrian part of the BOBCATSSS 2011-team presented their working results in the general University’s project presentation session at the University of Applied Sciences Burgenland in Eisenstadt.
This session is held once a year, where representatives of the economics sector of the region are invited to evaluate the students projects in a jury and to award the best projects. For the presentation of BOBCATSSS, the organisation itself, as well as project aims, tasks and results were presented.
For this event, Elin Lien, head of BOBCATSSS 2011’s “Marketing” group visited Austria to register as first participant for BOBCATSSS 2011 in Szombathely.
The official registration period is going online within the next few weeks, so keep up to follow your way to BOBCATSSS 2011 in Szombathely.
In 14th of April, people celebrates librarians! This special day was initiated by ALA and IFLA, and its purpose is organizing various programes for libraries and attracting attention to librarians.
There are some nice sentences on holidayinsights.com:
"National Librarian Day celebrates and honors librarians. They are among the most knowledgeable people you know. When you visit your cavernous library in search of a particular book, or a specific research topic, they always quickly point you in the right direction. And, they do so with a smile.
Celebrate the day by sending a card to your librarian. Visit the library today, and make certain to say hello and "Thank you" to all of the librarians. "
In March, an interesting broadcast was on the air. Radio Berzsenyi, the radio station of Savaria Campus, Szombathely invited Adrienn Szejli and Péter Briga to talk about the BOBCATSSS symposium. The anchors of the scienfitic programme were concerned about the impressions, experiences of Parma conference. Adrienn and Péter presented the main facts about BOBCATSSS, the methods of organization and their personal ideas and opinions. They emphasized BOBCATSSS is very important to the University and Szombathely, because new international relations could be born between librarians, students or teachers.
In the news of Radio Szombathely, the most popular radio station of the town, there was a little report about BOBCATSSS too. This report based upon an interview with Bálint Bereczki. It was a brief introduction of the symposium.
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