Dear TDWG Members and Friends (with apologies for CP) The conference web site (http://www.tdwg.org/conference2009) and online registration is now open for TDWG 2009 in Montpellier. TDWG 2009 will have a very different structure to recent meetings. There will be plenary sessions on the Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The three themes 'The e-Biosphere Roadmap' (Walter Berendsohn), 'Agricultural Biodiversity Informatics' (Elizabeth Arnaud) and 'Data Integration' (Roger Hyam)' will operate generally as parallel working group sessions on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with introductions in the Monday plenary. The latest version of the Programme Committee's detailed programme can be found on the conference site. The current committee thinking about the working sessions (Tuesday-Thursday) can be found at http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/Conferences/Tdwg2009). Comments and ideas can be added here. This year, we are aiming at significant advances in areas such as the TDWG ontology and LSID infrastructure. We also anticipate that Darwin Core, TAPIR and the LSID Applicability Statement will be TDWG standards before TDWG 2009. What's next? We warmly welcome the 'old hands' and new TDWG'ians. If you are new to TDWG or thinking of supporting us, please see http://www.tdwg.org/getting-started/. If there is something you would like to know and can't locate, something to grumble about, or something to encourage, please email me at lee(at)tdwg.org. Montpellier is a wonderful city on the Mediterranean with the venue in the centre of the city that promises to be excellent: Good location, great cuisine, excellent company and stimulating ideas on issues of global significance. What more could you want? We hope to see you (and partners) in Montpellier. Lee Lee Belbin TDWG Secretariat