  We present the first results of an ongoing spectroscopic survey of galaxies
selected in the rest-frame ultraviolet. The source catalogue was constructed
from a flux-limited sample of stars, galaxies and QSOs imaged at 2000 \AA with
the FOCA balloon-borne camera (Milliard et al. 1992). The redshift distribution
obtained for 45 galaxies spans 0<z<0.3 and a high fraction of the spectra show
intense nebular emission lines and ultraviolet-optical colors considerably
bluer than can be accounted for via normal Hubble sequence galaxies. From the
rest-frame ultraviolet galaxy luminosity function, and adopting a normal IMF,
we use the integrated UV light to our survey limit to estimate the local volume
averaged star formation rate. We find a value significantly larger than recent
estimates and argue this must be a lower limit to the true value. Our results
suggest the local abundance of star-forming galaxies has been underestimated in
surveys based on optical data.
