Ten years ago the first International Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences (COINS-63) was held at Northwestern University. Since that time, computer and information sciences have witnessed a great intensification of research and education. The activities in this field have been significantly broadened and enriched. During this ten-year period, we have organized four COINS symposia to provide a forum for promoting com munication among scientists, engineers, and educators in the computer and information science field and to act as a catalyzer for stimulating creative thinking within the community of information processing. The COINS-72 symposium, which took place in Miami Beach on December 14--16,1972, under the cosponsorship of the U.S. Army Research Office, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the University of Florida, is the fourth International Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences. The theme of this COINS symposium is information systems. This theme has been selected for the following reasons: Information systems have offered widespread applications in education, government, industry, and science. The bulk of research in computer and information science is now geared to the development of improved information systems. A major portion of software engineering is concerned with computer software and sophisticated information system design. It seems logical that a symposium on information systems should follow the preceding software engineering conference.