Apologies for any cross postings.

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CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
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*** Draft programme attached ***

SIGIR 2004

Twenty-Seventh Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and
Development in Information Retrieval

http://sigir.org/sigir2004/

July 25 - 29, 2004
Sheffield, UK

Organized by
The University of Sheffield and ACM

SIGIR is the major international forum for the presentation of new research
results and for the demonstration of new systems and techniques in the broad
field of information retrieval (IR). The Conference and Program Chairs
invite all those working in areas related to IR to submit original research
contributions, posters, and proposals for tutorials, workshops, and
demonstrations of systems.

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SHEFFIELD
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Once devoted to being a world-leading steel town, Sheffield's largest
money-making industries are now its Universities. The fifth largest city in
the UK, Sheffield is one of the country's greenest: filled with parks and
trees. The University of Sheffield is located in one of the pleasantest
parts: the west end. Here, restaurants, cafes, and bars - all within walking
distance of the conference location - offer evening activities for all.

Sheffield is an excellent starting point to explore the North of England. To
the west, only 5 miles from the city centre, is the Peak District National
Park. Here, internationally renowned stately homes, such as Chatsworth, Lyme
Park, and Haddon Hall, combine with famous rock climbing crags and great
opportunities to walk to produce one of the worlds most visited national
parks. To the north east, the city of York offers to the visitor its Minster
(the largest Gothic Cathedral in Northern Europe), the Jorvik Viking centre,
and the National Railway Museum, the largest such museum in the world. The
other great cities of the North, Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool can all be
visited as a day trip from Sheffield. London to the south is only 2.5 hours
on the train.

Travel to Sheffield: http://sigir.org/sigir2004/travel.htm

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CONFERENCE COMMITTEE
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Programme Committee
-Kalervo Jarvelin, University of Tampere, Finland -James Allan, University
of Massachusetts, USA -Peter Bruza, Distributed Systems Technology Centre,
Australia

Posters Chair
-Gareth Jones, Dublin City University, Ireland

Best Papers Chair
-John Tait, University of Sunderland, UK

Mentoring Chair
-Doug Oard, University of Maryland, USA

Doctoral Consortium
-David Harper, Robert Gordon University, UK

Tutorials Chair
-Fabio Crestani, University of Strathclyde, UK

Workshops Chair
-Mounia Lalmas, Queen Mary, University of London, UK

Demos Chair
-Ian Ruthven, University of Strathclyde, UK

Allocation of EU Student Travel Grants
-Stefan Rueger, Imperial College London, UK

Local Organisers
  General Chair
  -Mark Sanderson, University of Sheffield, UK

  Treasurer
  -Micheline Beaulieu, University of Sheffield, UK
  -Kathryn Cobley (Conference accountant), University of Sheffield, UK

  Local Arrangements
  -Peter Willett, University of Sheffield, UK

  Registration chair
  -Daniela Petrelli, University of Sheffield, UK

  Publicity & Website
  -Hideo Joho, University of Sheffield, UK
  -Steve Levin, University of Sheffield, UK

  Organiser of PC meeting in London
  -Mounia Lalmas, Queen Mary, University of London, UK

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MORE INFORMATION
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For further details, see the Conference web site.

http://sigir.org/sigir2004/.