  The ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) presented in early issues of the Messenger, and
with up-to-date information on the ongoing observations available on the Web
(http://www.eso.org/eis), is a concerted effort by ESO and the Member State
community to provide targets for the first year of operation of the VLT. It
consists of two parts: a relatively wide-angle survey (EIS-WIDE) to cover four
pre-selected patches of sky, 6 square degrees each, spread in right ascension
to search for distant clusters and quasars and a deep, multicolor survey of
four optical (SUSI-2) and two infrared (SOFI) covering the HST/Hubble Deep
Field South (HDFS) and its flanking fields (EIS-DEEP). From the start, the main
challenge has been to carry out a public survey in a limited amount of time
requiring observations, software development and data reduction with the goal
of distributing the survey data products before the call for proposal for the
VLT. To cope with this one-year timetable, a novel type of collaboration
between ESO and the community has been established which has allowed EIS to
combine the scientific and technical expertise fo the community with in-house
know-how and infrastructure. In spite of the adverse weather conditions in some
of the earlier runs, EIS has already proved to be successful experiment
achieving most of its scientific and technical goals, thereby laying the ground
work for future imaging surveys.
