The 6th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA '98) will be held at the Venice International University in San Servolo, Venice, Italy, August 24--26, 1998. The European Symposium on Algorithms covers research in the use, design, and analysis of efficient algorithms and data structures as it is carried out in computer science, discrete applied mathematics and mathematical programming. Papers are solicited describing original results in all areas of algorithmic research, including but not limited to: Approximation Algorithms; Combinatorial Optimization; Computational Biology; Computational Geometry; Databases and Information Retrieval; Graph and Network Algorithms; Machine Learning; Number Theory and Computer Algebra; On-line Algorithms; Pattern Matching and Data Compression; Symbolic Computation. The algorithms may be sequential, distributed or parallel, and they should be analyzed either mathematically or by rigorous computational experiments. Submissions that report on experimental and applied research are especially encouraged.