Formation of an Ad Hoc Committee to Coordinate the Upcoming International Conferences on the World-Wide Web.

Also invited to the meeting were representatives of academia, government and industry who have been active in the conferences. In attendance were Jean-Francois Abramatic (INRIA); Tim Berners-Lee (CERN/MIT); Tim Krauskopf (Spyglass); Corinne Moore (Uniforum); R. P. C. Rodgers (U. S. National Library of Medicine); Yuri Rubinsky (SGML Open and SoftQuad); Al Vezza (MIT); and Stuart Weibel (Online Computer Library Center).

To insure a timely and high quality series of conferences, the participants formed the International World-Wide Web Conference Committee. It was agreed that the committee should be co-chaired by past and present conference chairs. This year, Robert Cailliau and Joseph Hardin will chair the committee. Next year Detlef Kroemker, chairman of the 3rd International Conference, will replace Robert Cailliau. Ira Goldstein, director of the OSF RI and co-chair of the 2nd International Conference, will be secretary/treasurer. Additional members of the community who have been active at these conferences will also be invited to serve on the committee to insure broad representation.

An important issue discussed by the committee was the frequency and location of future conferences. The 2nd conference is scheduled to take place in Chicago in October; the 3rd conference is scheduled to take place in Darmstadt next April. At issue was whether the conferences should continue to be semi-annual and where future conferences should be located. While the 4th conference is at least 14 months away, it is necessary to plan well in advance in order to secure hotel rooms and a conference facility.

For this reason, the conference committee is inviting recommendations for the frequency and location of future conferences. Of particular interest are proposals from organizations willing to host the conference and provide support for local arrangements. If you have any suggestions or are interested in being a host site, please send mail to me, Dr. Ira Goldstein . The replies will be collated and a summary provided on the web. The committee's timetable is to solicit input during September and reach a decision at the October conference.

Barbara A. Kucera
Mosaic Conference Coordinator, Software Development Group
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign