The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has been chosen as the site of the first UNOLS (University‐National Oceanographic Laboratory System) office. Developed as a planning and coordinating mechanism for oceanographic research facilities, the organization has as its chairman, Arthur E. Maxwell, Provost of the Oceanographic Institution, and Jay M. Savage of the University of Southern California as its Vice Chairman. R.P. Dinsmore, former Chief of the Marine Sciences Division of the U.S. Coast Guard, has been designated Executive Secretary and will direct the UNOLS office at the Oceanographic Institutio