What is the meaning of “In Proceedings Of ...”?

Question

I saw the phrase “In Proceedings Of ...” many times on Google Scholar. What is the meaning of that?

For example, “In Proceedings of the International Conference of ...”. Does that mean that you send this paper to that conference and they accept it?

Answer 1

When it comes to conferences, if there were submitted papers, and they were published as a volume, that volume is called the proceedings.

A paper that was published in the proceedings must have been accepted by the conference.

Sometimes the proceedings are published as a standalone work, and sometimes they are published as a special issue of a journal.

It should be noted that some societies publish a journal that has "Proceedings" in the title, such as the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" or the "Proceedings of the Royal Society". These should be distinguished as standalone journals and not confused with the proceedings of a conference.

Answer 2

Consider this an extended comment to complement Bill's answer.

• Articles published in conference proceedings have lengths that can vary from one page to several or many pages, depending on the conference. Each conference specifies the length requirements. Some conferences do not publish proceedings, but give to the participants a list of short abstracts. This is typically called the Book of abstracts.
• Proceedings might be published not only by conferences but also by schools. For example the International School of Physics "Enrico Fermi" publishes a series of proceedings collecting articles and lecture notes from the school's courses.
• At least one conference that I'm aware of does not call the published volume proceedings, but digest. This is the Conference on Precision Electromagnetic Measurements (CPEM). I don't know if there are other conferences which don't use the name proceedings.