This is the proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the International Federation of Classification Societies held in Kobe, Japan, on March 27-30, 1996: The astounding increase in computer usage over the past decade and the ever-increasing scope of global communication networks have ushered in the information age; however, human intelligence is required to make sense of this sea of data and to use it effectively. Consequently, the rapidly developing cross-disciplinary field of data science has come of age. This volume contains selected papers from the Fifth Conference of the International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS-96), held in Kobe, Japan, in March 1996. A wide range of topics is covered, including theoretical and methodological advances relating to data gathering, classification and clustering, exploratory and multivariate data analysis, and knowledge seeking and discovery. A broad view of the state of the art is presented, making this an essential work not only for data analysts, mathematicians, and statisticians but also for researchers involved in data processing at all stages from data gathering to decision making.