** apologies for cross-postings **

We are pleased to announce the16th BOBCATSSS Symposium, 28-30 Jan 2008, Zadar, Croatia.

Contributions in any form - workshop, paper, poster presentation - are welcome. The main theme for 2008 is "Providing Access to Information for Everyone".

Thinking, you would like to be part of this innovative congress? Just offer a contribution! We are looking forward to your informative concepts until 15 May 2007.

For further information and guidelines for the abstracts please visit our website: www.bobcatsss2008.org. There you will also find a printable version of the Call for Papers as well as flyers and a poster that can be handed out to students, colleagues or anyone interested.

bobcatsss. get informed.

BOBCATSSS 2008 Organisation Team
Zadar / Osijek / Berlin / Potsdam
Contact:
University of Zadar, Department of Library and Information Science, BOBCATSSS team, Ul. dr. F. Tudjmana 24i, 23 000 Zadar / Croatia, E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
Fachhochschule Postdam, Fachbereich Informationswissenschaften, BOBCATSSS team, Postfach 60 06 08, 14406 Potsdam / Germany, E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
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Call for papers

16th Symposium BOBCATSSS 2008 (Zadar, Croatia)

Theme: Providing Access to Information for Everyone

Access to information is vital for the personal and social growth of every individual. However, many people are facing barriers in accessing information, whether they are technical issues - like infrastructure, standards or the usability of services; political and legal issues – like copyright or censorship; social issues – like information literacy or information behaviour of different user groups; or economical issues – like cost of information. The goal of the BOBCATSSS 2008 symposium is to explore access to information for everybody from the technical, political and legal, social and economical point of view. The symposium would like to identify the existing barriers in accessing information and to offer an overview of new concepts, ideas and examples of good practice in order to raise awareness and achieve possible solutions. Invited are contributions in a form of a paper, workshop or a poster covering the following topics:

Technical aspects:

Infrastructures, standards and interoperability for universal access to information
Open access supported by open source
Digital repositories and document server (long term preservation and access)
Usability, service and interface design

Political aspects:

Repression via information - withdrawal/censorship
Bills and laws for LIS - an international composition
Copyright aspect of open access and open source initiative
Role of national/regional/local government in the development of information institutions

Social aspects:

Digital divide
Information professionals in the information society
Information literacy (a holistic approach)
Information ethics
Information behavior of different users groups

Economical aspects:

Cost of information
Cost of electronic resources
Licensing agreements
Digital library costs

The target group are students. We are especially inviting workshop contributions or papers given by students or teams of students and teachers. For further information and guidelines for the abstracts please visit our website: www.bobcatsss2008.org. The abstract should be sent by 15 May 2007 to the following address:

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