  We report on our observing program to obtain integrated spectrophotometry,
intermediate and high resolution major axis spectra, and U,B,R surface photo-
metry of a representative sample of ~200 galaxies in the nearby field. The main
goal of this program is to provide a comparison sample for high redshift
studies and to study the variation in star formation rates (SFR), star forma-
tion history (SFH), excitation, metallicity, and internal kinematics over a
large range in galaxy luminosity and morphological type. In particular, we
extend the work of Kennicutt (1992) to lower luminosity systems.
  We present the main results of our analysis sofar. In these proceedings, we
condense the presented two atlases of (1) images and radial surface brightness
profiles and color profiles, and (2) of images and integrated spectra into
several example images, profiles and spectra, showing the general trends
observed. For the original atlasses we refer to the electronic version,
available at http://www.astro.rug.nl/~nfgs/ .

Astrophysics