On behalf of AURA and the newly-established Committee for Development of an Integrated Ground-Based/OIR System (CDIS), NOAO will host an important meeting, “Building the System from the Ground Up: The Second Community Workshop,” on Thursday, May 13 and Friday, May 14, 2004 at the Holiday Inn Select in Alexandria, Virginia.

The objective of the Second Workshop is two-fold: (1) to identify, as a community, the strategic issues involved in making the System concept a reality (as advocated in the decadal survey and endorsed by NSF), and (2) to address System topics raised in the Committee’s recent survey of over 900 U.S. astronomers, specifically including: (a) the System concept applied to smaller telescopes, (b) how to organize more successful instrumentation partnerships, (c) a system approach to software, archives, and the emerging virtual observatory, (d) enabling unique observational modes, and (e) the systemic perspective on planetary research.