The seventeenth COBISS conference was held in Maribor, at the Habakuk Convention Centre, on 11 and 12 November 2009. It was attended by 480 participants from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, as well as the eminent experts from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Italy and the Netherlands. The conference was organised in the context of the European Year of Creation and Innovation, by IZUM – the Institute for Information Sciences from Maribor, in cooperation with the Ministry for Higher Education, Science and Technology, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia.

Montenegro was represented by 30 librarians from the CNL “Djurdje Crnojevic”, the University Library, college and public libraries, then the ambassador of Montenegro to Slovenia, Mr Ranko Milovic,  the representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science of Montenegro, Mr Igor Radusinović and Mr Saša Ivanović, and the representative of the University of Montenegro, Ms Branka Bošnjak.

During the two-day event numerous interesting presentations were heard. This primarily refers to two panel discussions: Accessibility of Information on Research Potentials and Results for Cooperation in the Region, with the participation of the ministers of science, technology and higher education from the countries that have so far expressed interest in participating in the COBISS.Net Project, and the panel: Library Information Systems for Comprehensive Creativity Overview. On behalf of Montenegro the first panel was attended by Mr Igor Radusinovic, representative of the Ministry of Education and Science. In the second panel the keynote speaker was Majda Širca, Slovenian Minister of Culture, and Jelena Đurović, director of CNL “Djurdje Crnojevic” participated in this panel as the representative of Montenegro and presented the experiences of Montenegrin libraries using the COBISS programme equipment.

Vojko Volk, coordinator for the Balkans in the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, spoke about Slovenia's support towards bringing the Western Balkans countries closer to the EU.

On the second conference day eminent experts spoke of current issues in the development of library systems, such as cataloguing rules and practice in the region, then the rationalization of cataloguing and improved functionality of the COBISS system and the transition to the COBISS3 applications.