Towards improving the prospects for coordinated gravitational-wave and
  electromagnetic observations
  We discuss two approaches to searches for gravitational-wave (GW) and
electromagnetic (EM) counterparts of binary neutron star mergers. The first
approach relies on triggering archival searches of GW detector data based on
detections of EM transients. We introduce a quantitative approach to evaluate
the improvement to GW detector reach due to the extra information gained from
the EM transient and the increased confidence in the presence of a signal from
a binary merger. We also advocate utilizing other transients in addition to
short gamma ray bursts. The second approach involves following up GW candidates
with targeted EM observations. We argue for the use of slower but optimal
parameter-estimation techniques to localize the source on the sky, and for a
more sophisticated use of astrophysical prior information, including galaxy
catalogs, to find preferred followup locations.
