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I am Elmer Holmes Bobst Great-Grandaughter. The correct pronunciation of Bobst is "Bow" bst.

As I'm a Bobst I can assure you that the family name "Bobst" is NOT originating from "Probst". The name Bobst is originating from the town of Oensingen in Switzerland.

I happen to be a great-niece of Elmer Holmes Bobst. The family have always pronounced the name as in "bow" Bobst. Bob- (as in the diminutive of Robert) -st has never figured at all.

Family legend has the origins of the name in the German "Probst." (same "o" sound in both names)

No one at NYU except the librarians pronounce "Bobst" with a "long o" ("bow", as in "bow-tie". Everybody else uses a "short o" ("Bob" as in Robert). The librarians follow the old fellow's practice. But years ago, I took a telephone call at the reference desk at Bobst from a woman who identified herself as a niece (if I recall) of the old fellow -- and she pronounced her name with a "short o". A family rift.
As for "his virulent anti-semitism" and his friendship with Richard Nixon -- he wasn't a nice guy, I guess.
"BobCat" the catalog came before "The Bobcats" sports teams. When the online catalog was about to be released, the library offered a prize of, if I recall, a $100 dollar gift certificate at a prominent clothing store to the library staff member who came up with the best name for it. So many people proposed "BobCat" that each wound up with a pair of shoe-laces.
Meanwhile, the NYU sports teams were suffering from the ignominy of being called "The Violets", from the school color, which is from a flower that bloomed at its former campus in the Bronx. Evidently the ignominy of being nicknamed after a library catalog seemed the lesser of two evils.

I agree with Christopher. :)
With respect to the catalog being BobCat (it's properly spelled with a capital C...i.e., Bobst Catalog), the NYU mascot is a bobcat. I think it's a happy coincidence that Mr. Bobst and bobcats are associated with NYU.

Elmer Bobst use to summer in Spring Lake, NJ. He was a member of the Bath & Tennis Club where my father taught swimming to his children, grandchildren and second wife. His last name was pronounced like Bow-bst as in "tie a bow in your hair" with the 'bst' softly added on the end. He and his second wife not only generously gave to NYU but also to the New York Animal Hospital that is now named after him and wife, Mamdouha.

I've worked here at Bobst Library longer than I'd care to admit and was a student at NYU before that and the whole time I've been associated with the University it's been BOOHbst, long O, and not BAHbst. Mrs. Bobst is still alive and is still a benefactor and if here name were being universally mispronounced I'm sure she'd find a way to make that known. As to why the catalog is, indeed, called BobCat - well, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds and there are nothing but giant minds and great spirits here!

-C. Crowe
Bobst Library
Access Services Financial Coordinator

In my grad school days at NYU it was pronounced BOB. For a fuller sense of this evil benefactor, Google will lead you to his virulent anti-semitism and the $700K "hush money" payoff he made to a family member, to assure her silence about his perpetration of incest. So, maybe the BOB phoneme morphed over time, as fewer of us still recall the Lorena Bobbitt case.

Elizabeth proves my first message correct, it's changed over the years. That voice on the phone must be there since the time when it was shifting of open o to close o from Bobst to Bobst and so it sounds somewhere in the middle.

just did a google search on "pronunciation" and "Bobst" (I was getting my ph.d at NYU when the
library was being built, and it was BOB st, not BOBE st. see the link below: a vote for BOB st.

http://library.duke.edu/blogs/answerperson/2005/07/21/bobst-library-nyu/

Then why is their computer system Bobcat!?

It used to be pronounced Bobst now it's pronounced Bobst.