On the second day, the members of the DELOS consortium gave presentations on DL-related research activities under way in their organisations. It was clear that considerable research efforts are already under way in ERCIM institutes on activities which are relevant for the efficient and cost-effective development of digital library systems. Topics covered ranged from DL architectures, multi-lingual and multimedia information retrieval to economic models and payment schemes. From the general discussions throughout the two day workshop between the US and European participants a set of key research issues emerged; these regarded both technical questions and economic, social and legal problems. Particularly relevant topics on which future activities could be concentrated were identified and included interoperability and metadata, multilingual access and retrieval, intellectual property rights, economic models and charging systems. The proceedings in the form of extended abstracts of the presentations will be available shortly. Subsequent DELOS Workshops will focus on some of the topics identified at the kick-off meeting. In these workshops attention will be paid to establishing relationships with industrial and non-ERCIM institutions interested in the particular area. The idea is not to limit these meetings to the exchange of ideas and experiences but also to prepare the ground for the definition of new joint activities in the field. The next DELOS Workshop will be on Metadata and Interoperability and will be organised by Tom Baker, GMD, in autumn `96. A Call for Contributions will be issued soon and will be publicised on the ERCIM Web.
