In 1996, JACoW was set up for the publication of EPAC and PAC conference proceedings. As this PAC/EPAC collaboration got underway, it was joined by APAC for its first conference which took place in 1998, and gradually by other conference series: BIW, COOL, CYCLOTRONS, DIPAC, FEL, ICALEPCS, ICAP, ICFA ABDW, LINAC, PCaPAC, RuPAC and SRF.
Each conference series agrees to adopt common templates, and to produce JACoW-compatible files of papers for publication at the site. They also agree to abide by terms of reference and boundary conditions which have been put in place to facilitate the training of editors through hands-on experience in processing during the PAC and EPAC conferences, and also through attendance at the annual JACoW Team Meetings where technical problems related to electronic publication are addressed.
JACoW has thus become a collaboration in electronic publication, with a Steering Committee composed of the the Chairs of the past, current and future conferences in each of the above series.
More recently, the JACoW collaboration has developed a Scientific Programme Management System (SPMS) based on Oracle software. Originally designed to handle contributions to a scientific conference from abstract submission through to the production of the proceedings, it is now used for many of the organizational activities, as well as to manage delegate and industrial exhibition registration, refereeing and hotel accommodation.