Setting the scene for Gaia and LAMOST : the current and next generations of surveys and models : proceedings of the 298th Symposium of the International Astronomical Union, held in Lijiang, China, May 20-24, 2013 / edited by Sofia Feltzing (Lund Observatory, Department of Astronomy and Theoretical Physics, Lund, Sweden) Gang Zhao (National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China), Nicholas A. Walton (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK), and Patricia A. Whitelock (South African Astronomical Observatory and University of Cape Town, South Africa)