Librarianship in the Information Age: The 13th BOBCATSSS Symposium

Citation

Matthias Eiriksson, J. and Manuel Retsloff, J. (2005), "Librarianship in the Information Age: The 13th BOBCATSSS Symposium", New Library World, Vol. 106 No. 7/8. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.2005.072106gac.001

Librarianship in the Information Age: The 13th BOBCATSSS Symposium

The 13th annual BOBCATSSS symposium on library and information science took place in Budapest, Hungary. BOBCATSSS is an acronym and the letters stand for the first letters of the city of the universities that initiated the symposiums: Budapest, Oslo, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Tampere, Stuttgart, Szombately and Sheffield. This year the symposium was organised in cooperation between students from the Oslo University College, Norway and students from the Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary.

By bringing the BOBCATSSS conference to Budapest, due respect was paid to the city in which BOBCATSSS was held for many years. As many will know, Budapest is both a beautiful and interesting city. Furthermore, as Budapest is central to librarians due to the famous library of Matthias Corvinus, it is an exquisite choice for a conference on Library and Information science.

The 13th BOBCATSSS symposium kept alive the tradition of enlightening and entertaining discourse. The theme of the symposium was Librarianship in the Information Age. This both broad and important theme had inspired numerous and various papers and presentations. It would be impossible to point out any presentation over others, but the overall impression was that librarians across the world are very much aware of the challenges libraries face these years. Another aspect of the symposium was that these challenges come in many shapes and sizes. The variation of topics was to a large degree overwhelming, but the organisers nevertheless managed to present a coherent and meaningful program.

An aspect of the theme was how we as librarians and information specialists can handle the challenges presented by an ever more complex society. Several speakers covered this aspect.

Jack Andersen talked about the importance of the librarian as an information critic. The self-understanding of the librarian as the defender and promoter of democracy, free access to information and literacy is in stark contrast to the image as neutral agents of social and cultural communication. In a society where knowledge organisation systems are becoming important in everyday life, critical insight into how systems work and why is also important, and the modern librarian can fulfil the role of information critic.

In his straightforward and thought provoking presentation: “Libraries without collections! Librarianship without an identity?” Karsten Nissen Pedersen asked whether libraries can be legitimised when the collection is distributed, leaving the library as an empty shell? And what is librarianship, if it is not connected to the library as an institution?

Another important aspect of the conference is the globalisation and its impact on library work.

Ewa Chykowska gave a presentation on the subject of online dictionaries, comparing and contrasting different tools for manoeuvring through the many languages of the internet. This is an interesting aspect, as the presentation showed that while there has been much development of online dictionaries, there is still much work is still to be done.

The study carried out by Jadranka Lasiæ-Laziæ, Sonja Spiranec and Mihaela Banek Zorica showed that it is possible to identify a cognitive development in conception among students with regard to information literacy. While the term information literacy used to carry a meaning closely related to information technology, it currently refers to a broader range of skills. Apart from technical skills, information literacy embraces a whole conglomerate of values, attitudes, skills, knowledge and perspectives directed towards enabling critical thinking, learning and consume of information.

As for placing the conference in Budapest, it must be said that few cities in Europe give such superb surroundings for the hard work of attending conferences. The National Library and the old town of Buda is filled with reminiscence of old books, past culture and forgotten stories, and no librarian can enter these settings without feeling enthusiastic respect and humble excitement. Furthermore the intriguing nightlife of Budapest, which guaranteed intellectual debates and networking among the participants, could easily have been too much, had it not been for the selection of thermal baths, which turned every morning into an almost religious experience.

However, we are confident that next years BOBCATSSS held in Tallinn, Estonia, will face up to the challenge of matching the symposium in Budapest. The BOBCATSSS conference in Tallinn is to be arranged by students from Tallinn Pedagogical University, Department for Information Studies, Estonia and the Royal School of Library and Information Science, Denmark. The theme of the symposium is “Information Professionals in the Network Society”. This theme holds potential for a conference that will continue the high standard and relevance of the BOBCATSSS.

Jonas Matthias Eiriksson and José Manuel Retsloff Royal School of Library and Information Science, Copenhagen, Denmark