Dear Categorists - Does anyone know references that address the question of strictifying weak 2-groupoids? Here by a "weak 2-groupoid" I mean something like a bicategory in which every 2-morphism is invertible and every 1-morphism is an equivalence, and by "strictifying" such a thing I mean finding a biequivalent strict 2-category in which every 1-morphism and every 2-morphism is invertible. I remember someone giving a talk on the "fundamental bigroupoid" of a topological space in Coimbra, but I forget who it was, and whether they published anything, and whether they addressed this strictification question. Does anyone know? Also: does anyone know a reference which shows that any bicategory is equivalent to a skeletal one in which the left and right unit laws are identity 2-morphisms? Here by "skeletal" I mean that isomorphic 1-morphisms are equal and equivalent objects are equal. Best, jb 10-Mar-2002 19:46:09 -0400,1369;000000000000-00000000