Conference proccedings have changed in the last few years. Two major changes are their size and media. Now for most major conferences there are so many papers that 2-3 volumes are needed. The weight of the proceedings usually doubles the weight of your luggage. Luckily, most conferences now provide the proceedings in electronic form — many people leave their paper proceedings in their hotel room. But the proceedings in electronic form is really the same as the paper format.
Wouldn’t it be nice if conference proceedings really reflected the proceedings at the conference rather than collect papers much before the conference. Conference Proccedings are really not ‘proceedings’ at all, They do not reflect what happened, but the potential program related material.
It may be possible to utilize modern technology to really prepare the proceedings. We are planning to start a project on this thinking at National University of Singapore. More on this soon here.