Metadata chairs: Tom Baker and Clifford Lynch Guidelines for Position Papers (Due January 6, 1998) In preparation for the February meeting in Washington D. C., each working group member should prepare a position paper, and circulate it to the group (submission instructions are included below). Here are some questions to keep in mind as you set down your thoughts. What are the pressing issues in the area of metadata? What problems should take priority? What role can academia play as opposed to industry and government (including public research funding)? Where is international collaboration needed? Our goal as a group will be not to propose specific solutions, but to articulate an agenda for research. The position paper is your chance to put forth whatever issues you think we should consider as a group. Use whatever style you prefer; three pages is only a suggestion. Perhaps you could introduce yourself briefly too, or provide links to recent work. The papers should be in HTML or plain ASCII for posting on the group's Web space, which will be accessible to just the twelve of us, plus perhaps a few visitors from the other ERCIM-NSF Working Groups. Some of us are looking forward to a few days of real vacation over the holiday break. So I'd like to propose a harder deadline for the position papers of Tuesday, 6 January. Please send your paper to Jennifer Perkins jperkins@umich.edu for posting on the group's web space and announce it to the group as a whole dl.meta@umich.edu.