ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ A p ril 1998 / 2 7 3 The In tern atio n al BOBCATSSS Symposium Shaping the knowledge society by Lester J. P ou rciau T h e s ix th In te r n a tio n a l B O B C A T SSS Symposium was held January 2 6 -2 8 , at the National Szechenyi Library situated on hills above the river Donau in Budapest, Hun­ gary. The five previous symposia were ar­ ranged and organized by students from the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, but in 1998, this challenge was taken over by students from the Royal School o f Library and Information Science in Copenhagen, Denmark. BOBCATSSS is an acronym for an associa­ tion o f European educational institutes in Li­ brary and Information Science. The name is derived from the names o f towns where the founding institutes are situated (Budapest, Oslo, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, T a m p e r e , S h e f f ie ld , S tu ttg a rt, and Szombathely). Since its founding, the Institutes o f Kharkiv in Ukraine, Moscow in Russia, Sofia in Bulgaria, and Tallinn in Estonia have joined the association. BOBCATSSS aim is to cooper­ ate, to exchange educational and research as­ sistance, and to build a network beneficial to students and lecturers. The theme o f BOBCATSSS ’98 was “Shap­ ing the Knowledge Society,” with paper pre­ sentations made on topics subsumed by hu­ man resource development, democracy and information literacy, quality, knowledge man­ agement, and future roles for the information specialist. Approximately 275 scholars and students from almost 30 countries and three different the continents were in attendance at the sympo­ sium. Presentations were grouped according to the topics subsumed by the overall theme o f the “Knowledge Society” and were pre­ sented simultaneously throughout the three days o f activity. A s s e s s m e n t an d th e le a rn in g s o c ie ty Mary Rowlatt, head o f Information Services at the Essex Libraries in Chelmsford in the United Kingdom, spoke very directly to the sympo­ sium theme by pointing out that “… little has been written about the Knowledge Society, and even less [about) the future role o f librar­ ies and librarians in such a society.” She went on to point out, by way o f contrast, that the concept o f Knowledge Management has gen­ erated a significant amount o f the debate and body o f literature and is beginning to be taken seriously in the business world. She then described how the Essex Librar­ ies were reposturing themselves to react to the challenges o f the Know ledge Society. Speaking to a different facet o f the same sub­ ject, Maria Burke o f the Department o f Infor­ mation and Communications o f Manchester Metropolitan University, in the UK, spoke about the assessment o f professional capabil­ ity beyond the millennium. She described a course module that has been developed in in her department to help students consider their own professionalism. This module takes ( c o n tin u e d o n p a g e 2 8 5 ) About the author Lester J. Pourciau is director o f libraries at th e University o f Memphis; e-mail: pourciau@ m suvx1 mempbis.edu mempbis.edu C&RL News ■ A p ril 1 9 9 8 / 2 8 5 A ngeles, C'A 9 0 0 9 5 -1 5 7 5 ; sallen @ lib rary . ucla.ed u . S c ie n ce a n d T e c h n o lo g y Amy L. Paster, Life Sciences Library, Penn­ sylvania State University, E205 Pattee Library, U n iv e rsity P ark , PA 1 6 8 0 2 - 1 8 0 1 ; alp @ psulias.psu.edu. Slavic a n d E ast E u ro p e a n Patricia K. Thurston, Slavic & East European Library, U n iv ersity o f Illin o is , U rb an a- Champaign; pthurstn@uxl .cso.u iu c.ed u . U n iv e rsity L ib ra rie s Barbara E. Kemp, assistant director for the Dew ey Graduate Library for Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, State Uni­ versity o f New York, 135 Western Avenue, A lb a n y , New Y o r k ; p h a n to m @ c n s v a x . albany.edu. W e s te rn E u ro p e a n S p ecialists Beau David Case, Language & Area Studies Departm ent, Ohio State LJniversity Librar­ ies, 1858 Neil Avenue Mall, Columbus, OEI 43210-1286; case.42@ o su .ed u . W o m e n ’s Studies Ruth Dickstein, Main Library, University o f Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85720-0055; dickstein@ bird.library.arizona.ed u . Apply for ACRL preconferences Learn more about advocacy, instruction, or special collections by attending one of ACRL’s three preconferences at the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. Details about the following preconferences may be found on the ACRL Web page at http://www.ala.org/acrl/annconf. html and in the March 1999 C&RL News: • “Advocacy training for academ ic li­ brarians: From ivory towers to halls of pow er,” Ju n e 2 4 -2 5 , 1998. • “Learning to Teach: Workshops on Instruction” sponsored by ACRL’s Instruc­ tion Section, Ju n e 26, 1998. • “Getting Ready for the Nineteenth Century: Strategies and Solutions for Rare B o o k and Special Collections Librarians,” sponsored by ACRL’s Rare Books & Manu­ scripts Section, Ju n e 2 3 -2 6 ,1 9 9 8 . ( T h e In t ’l. BOBCATSSS … c o n t. f r o m p . 2 7 3 ) the form of “Learning Development Reports, which are completed at the end of the stu dents’ final year. In this report, students come to a full realization that “… the ability to reflect upon one’s own development is seen as a desirable quality in modern professionals.” Clive Cochrane, a lecturer at Queens Uni versity of Belfast in Northern Ireland, presented “Information Professionals and the Learning Society,” in which he characterized and de scribed the Learning Society in terms of econo­ mies in rural markets and the impact o f this on society, the educational training and busi ness sector recognition o f the significance o learning, and the role of library and informa­ tional professionals and learning in the Learn­ ing Society. Cochrane managed very well a discussion of the overall transition from “… a society where education is important to a so­ ciety where learning permeates life.” One of the last presentations made during the symposium was by lecturer Pieter Penning of the Department of Information Science at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Penning spoke about future roles of information profes­ sionals with specific reference to the role of the information intermediary in South Africa. In his remarks, he assessed Africa’s access to and re­ sulting participation in the information society. He offered the fundamental hypothesis that cur­ rent initiatives to stimulate Africa’s participation in the Information Society focus primarily on access to information through technological in­ frastructures and do not take the accessibility of that information content into account. He argued that “the accessibility of information content is the pivotal point that will ensure or negate suc­ cess of current and future development initia­ tives in Africa.” B O B C A TSSS ’99 BOBCATSSS ’98 was a very well organized symposium, and credit for this must be given to the BOBCATSSS team. Plans are already well underway for BOBCATSSS ’99, which will take place in Bratislava on the Danube River in Slovakia. It is being organized as a project o f s tu d e n ts from th e F a c h h o c h s c h u le D a rm sta d t and th e H o c h s c h u le fu e r Bibliotheks- und Informationswesen Stuttgart. Further information can be obtained at http:// w w w .f h - d a r m s t a d t .d e / B O B C A T S S S / conf99.htm . ” ­ ­ ­ ­ f ucla.edu psulias.psu.edu cso.uiuc.edu albany.edu mailto:case.42@osu.edu bird.library.arizona.edu http://www.ala.org/acrl/annconf http://www.fh-darmstadt.de/BOBCATSSS/