This conference is being organised by the National Portrait Gallery and the British Society for the History of Science.

The likely pattern of conference will be four plenary sessions and a number of shorter sessions with papers of 25 minutes. Professor Ludmilla Jordanova is responsible for the programme, and offers of short papers can be made to her at any time between now and 1 November 1999. This should take the form of a brief abstract of no more than one page, together with any supporting material thought appropriate, for example, a list of items already published on the topic.

The final programme will be drawn up by Christmas 1999 and it will be circulated in the new year. A copy of the final programme can be sent to those who provide the Education Department of the National Portrait Gallery (St Martin's Place, London, WC2H 0HE) with a stamped addressed envelop marked 'BSHS conference'.

The meeting is being held in association with a small exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, which will explore portraiture in relation to practitioners of science, medicine and technology since the seventeenth century in Britain. The exhibition will open in late March or early April and will close at the end of June 2000. It will contain works in all media, and suggestions of unusual, visually interesting items that might be included can be made to Professor Jordanova, who would be particularly interested to hear of relevant self-portraits and of portraits made within domestic settings. The practice of portraiture is one of the main themes of the exhibition, so preparatory sketches are of particular relevance.

Professor Ludmilla Jordanova can be contacted at School of World Art Studies and Museology, University of East Anglia, Norwich, Norfolk, NR4 7TJ. E-mail: l.jordanova@uea.ac.uk.

The BSHS website is at: http://www.man.ac.uk/Science_Engineering/CHSTM/bshs/