  An automated search for metal-poor stars is carried out in the course of the
Hamburg/ESO objective-prism survey (HES), which covers the full southern sky at
Galactic latitudes |b| \gtrsim 30 degrees. As the HES reaches approx. 1
magnitude deeper and covers areas of the sky which have not been touched by the
HK Survey of Beers and collaborators, the total survey volume of the HES
represents an increase by a factor of 4.5 compared to the HK Survey. Because of
the limited availability of telescope time for spectroscopic follow-up
observations, we will focus on a search for the most metal-poor, unevolved
stars. We present a simulation study of the HES selection function P(B_J,
T_eff, [Fe/H], log g) for metal-poor stars, and results from a first follow-up
campaign at the ESO-NTT.
