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16. BOBCATSSS-Symposium: "Providing Access to Information for Everyone"
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From: "HURIDOCS" <info@huridocs.org>
Subject: 16. BOBCATSSS-Symposium: "Providing Access to Information for Everyone"
Date: 2008-02-08 16:25
16. BOBCATSSS-Symposium "Providing Access to Information for Everyone" January 28-30, 2008 Zadar, Croatia http://www.bobcatsss2008.org ***************************************************************** Press release "PROVIDING ACCESS TO INFORMATION FOR EVERYONE" Report about the BOBCATSSS symposium 2008 in Zadar, Croatia For three days the Mediterranean seaport Zadar provided the scenery for this year's 16th BOBCATSSS-symposium. Almost 350 participants from altogether 26 countries met in Croatia from January 28th to 30th. Discussions, the introduction of projects and the development of prospects were placed on the agenda for the organizers, the LIS faculties of the universities Berlin, Potsdam, Osijek and Zadar. "Providing Access to Information for Everyone" was the topic of the symposium, which tied up the participants in numerous lectures, eight workshops and five panels. The main emphasis was not only put on technical, political and legal but also on social and economic barriers, which need to be overcome in order to access information. Numerous social events and excursions invited the participants to explore the town and one or the other evening was devoted to further technical discussion and to establishing contacts in relaxed atmosphere. The opening lectures were held by Ana Marušić, editor of the Croatian Medical Journal and by Claudia Lux, president of the International Library Association (IFLA). With "How long libraries will exist as we have the internet"? Lux brought into focus the image and the role of libraries as well as the picture of the "dusty librarian". Offspring attendants were motivated to participate actively and to contribute to developing ideas for a positive change. She appealed to all students and young professionals to become active and to voice their opinion. Several workshops and lectures informed extensively about successful practice examples or alarming survey results concerning the availability of information in different countries. Among other things, in the panels discussions on the existence and definition of WEB 3.0, about the change of the role of the librarian and the change of the social room between libraries and the Internet were held. Equally lively debated was the important question whether libraries should censor their information and whether e.g. public libraries and school libraries should be treated differently. Integrating a company exhibition as well as company lectures and at times rather unconventional presentations, meant skating on thin ice for the young information scientists. But - no regrets: Lectures and exhibition were accepted and taken very positively. More information on the contents of the lectures can be found on the internet. For the very first time in BOBCATSSS history the organizers have decided to publish the proceeding volume in hybrid form. All lectures of the symposium are now available Open Access on the Edoc-server of the Humboldt University Berlin: http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/conferences/bobcatsss2008/ Furthermore they will be published with BOCK + HERCHEN as Volume 3 as part of the of the Contributions to Library and Information Science series.