BOBCATSSS 2006: Information, Innovation and Responsibility: Information Professional in the Network Society

Citation

Matthias Eiriksson, J., Lerche, A.-M. and Manuel Retsloff, J. (2006), "BOBCATSSS 2006: Information, Innovation and Responsibility: Information Professional in the Network Society", New Library World, Vol. 107 No. 7/8. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.2006.072107gac.001

BOBCATSSS 2006: Information, Innovation and Responsibility: Information Professional in the Network Society

BOBCATSSS 2006: Information, Innovation and Responsibility: Information Professional in the Network Society

This year the BOBCATSSS Conference took place in Tallinn, Estonia from January 30 to February 1.

BOBCATSSS is a Symposium on Library and Information Science, organized by students from universities in West and East Europe. BOBCATSSS is an acronym and the letters stand for the first letters of the city of the universities that initiated the symposium: Budapest, Oslo, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Tampere, Stuttgart, Szombately, and Sheffield.

This year the BOBCATSSS Symposium was organized in cooperation between the Royal School of Library and Information Science from Denmark and the Department of Information Studies of the Tallinn University from Estonia.

The theme of BOBCATSSS 2006 was “Information, Innovation and Responsibility: Information Professional in the Network Society” and more than 40 sessions with speakers from a variety of countries reflected many interesting sub-themes. Information policy and information ethics, as well as information literacy were in focus in many of the discussions.

Primoz Juznic, Tilen Mandelj and Stojan Peclin presented the result of their research into the quality of bibliometric measurement of scientific productivity. Their results showed that although there are many misguiding factors to take into account, it is still a field that holds potential for library and information science. Their presentation also gave room to an interesting discussion on the pros and cons of qualitative measurement versus quantitative measurement of research quality. Obviously no solutions where found, but the eagerness to discuss ex-auditorium, demonstrated inherent paradoxes in library and information science that might very well prove fruitful in the future.

Robert Pogorzelski from Poland talked about the possibilities of anonymity on the internet, as well as the ability to surf without big brother watching. It is being seen as suspicious to purchase, or otherwise obtain, identity protection software, and it is still harder to be free from oppression and surveillance on the internet. It is important for libraries to object to this development and support the possibility of anonymous and even subversive internet activities.

Gunhild Salvesen and Synnøve Ulvik from Norway, as well as Angela Maycock and Terry Weech from USA spoke on the subject of ethics in library and information services. Salvesen and Ulvik have studied ethical problems in reference interviews while Maycock and Weech have looked into how ethics are incorporated in library school curricula.

Salvesen and Ulvik concluded, on basis of some very interesting analysis of reference interviews, that librarians are not always aware of how they appear to and communicate with the patron. This results in the librarian being overly eager to solve the situation by providing something, instead of focusing on understanding and revealing the actual information need during the reference interview. This failure to focus on the user, by adjusting the users need to what is at hand in order not to fail as a librarian, was supported by the presentation of the research by Maycock and Weech. They showed that the focus on ethics in library and information education is at best random and heterogeneous. The importance of including ethical awareness in LIS curricula differs from school to school. This appears to collide with classic self understandings of librarians.

Michael Kristiansson had a session on the topic of information policies in small municipal libraries. He and Anna Skov Fougt use network theories as the theoretical background for their study, and concluded that smaller libraries, in order to avoid being squeezed between larger ones, need to take advantage of their networks, rather than merge into large libraries themselves.

Jutta Haider gave an interesting lecture on the emergence and construction of the concept of information poverty. She demonstrated the close relation to technology, thereby setting focus on the inevitable reproduction of certain segments in society as being information poor, namely those without proper access to the internet. Furthermore, she pointed out how the commodification of information that becomes obvious when connected to concepts of poverty and wealth, produces self-evident solutions to the problem. Her research was carried out as a Foucauldian discourse analysis, which, in our modest opinion, was a well chosen point of departure. Her lecture provided more questions than answers, which must be regarded as a success, when the aim is to question what appears obvious and point out the possibility of alternative understandings.

The overall impression of the presentations we overheard is that BOBCATSSS is increasingly becoming the forum for both classical approaches to library and information science as well as newer and more radical and constructivist approaches. Additionally, it is still the only conference that integrates practical and educational issues and points of view with academic research, which it does very well.

The symposium was very well organized, and from the registration at the beautiful National Library to the closing ceremony, the events went smoothly. Tallinn is a beautiful and interesting city with a long history and many historic sights, as well as a vivid social life. On the second night of the symposium a party at a local beer house had been arranged. To the tunes of a very enthusiastic folk-punk band, all participants, organizers and speakers could party the night away. The possibility for students, teachers and professionals from all over the world to come together in a both social and professional setting is what makes the BOBCATSSS very unique.

The next BOBCATSSS Symposium will be held in the city of Prague, in cooperation between Institute of Information Studies and Librarianship, Charles University, Prague; Media University, Stuttgart and University of Applied Sciences, Konstanz. The topic of the symposium is “Marketing of Information Services”. More information on the 2007 BOBCATSSS Symposium can be found at: www.bobcatsss.org

Jonas Matthias Eiriksson,Anne-Mette Lercheand José Manuel RetsloffDenmark