Friday, March 02, 2007

CFP: 16th symposium BOBCATSSS 2008 (Providing access to information for everyone)

CFP: 16th symposium BOBCATSSS 2008 (Providing access to information for everyone)

Dates: January 28th to 30th 2008
Location: University of Zadar (Croatia)
CFP URL: http://www.bobcatsss2008.org/cfp.pdf or
http://www.bobcatsss2008.org/callforpapers.html
Conference URL: http://www.bobcatsss2008.org/
Deadline: May 15, 2007

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. Please send your proposal abstract in any format (maximum 400 words in English including a short curriculum vitae, theme area and presentation type) by 15th of May 2007 to the following address: papers@bobcatsss2008.org