After four days of many scientific presentations ISSI 2009 was closed in a ceremony of spontaneous and short speeches. Abel Packer, Director of BIREME/PAHO/WHO was the master of ceremony in the conference organized by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), BIREME/PAHO/WHO and ISSI – International Society of Scientometrics and Informetrics.

Packer thanked all the participants for the presence and staff involved on the event organization. “In these days we had presentations on the state of the art in Bibliometric, Scientometric and Informetric sciences and the opportunity to contact people, to promote a network among researchers”, said Packer. He enlightened the institutions that made this Conference possible: CNPq, Capes, Faperj, Ministry of Health in Brazil as well as the sponsorship by Thomson Reuters, Avedas, Elsevier and Banco do Brasil.

Afterwards, he introduced the table for this ceremony, Ronald Rousseau, president of the Society and organizer of ISSI 2009, Jacqueline Leta, co-organizer of the conference. Packer also stressed the participation of Denis N. Ocholla, professor of the Department of Library Information Science, at the University of Zululand, in South Africa, where it will be held the 13th ISSI Conference in 2011.

Jacqueline Leta thanked all the participants, co-organizers and staff for being part of this challenge. “I think we were successful on the organization of this meeting, so we want to get comments, your opinion and impressions about the conference, the programme, all aspects you reached email, posts or comments on the blog”, said Jacqueline.

Ocholla awarded the participants of what will be waiting for them in 2011. He presented the Conference website available, talked about the development of committees involved and showed short videos on the local infrastructure and beauties. The southafrican tasty already inspired the audience to what is coming. “Brazil had a hard time on the soccer match against South Africa” teased Ocholla, meaning that all the efforts will be done so that ISSI will continue to be an event in progress, even reminding afterwards that the Brazilian team won the match during the last Confederations Cup.

Jane M. Russell, from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) made a speech in the name of all the participants during the ceremony. “I know we all want to join in the words of thanks to the local organizing committee for making this successful and enjoyable conference and experience. I think we all realized how much work it takes to get these conferences together. We are all very happy, we will leave this city with very happy memories of the conference, of Rio and Brazil”, said Russell asking for a special applause for the organization.

Rousseau declared the event evaluation as positive. “It really couldn’t be better. It was all very well organized without problems of any kind. Also contents were of high scientific quality and it was more than just organized it was, well pleasant, spontaneous, we all enjoyed it very much”, said the president of ISSI.

To completely close the ceremony in an inspiring mood, the participants enjoyed a slideshow of pictures on “faces of ISSI 2009”, with various people and moments of the event under a soundtrack of Turibio Santos, musician that performed on the opening ceremony. As a last and surprising session, outside the room it was provided a coffee break and a performance by UFRJ choir, with 40 local children. It was appealing, making everyone smile. The message left was that it is even possible to sing in the rhythm of science.

Numbers of ISSI

- total of submissions: 254

- final programme: 2 keynotes, 69 full papers, 29 research in progress and 64 posters

- participants: 223, from 34 countries

Written by Patrícia Santos and Lilian Calò – BIREME/PAHO/WHO