In the autumn of 1980, the decision was made by the responsible bodies of the German Society for Medical Documentation, Informatics and Statistics (Deutsche Gesellschaft fUr Medlzinische Dokumentation, Informatik und Statistik e.V.) to make the application of computers in blood banking and blood transfusion one of the topics to be treated at the 8th spring conference of this Society, which was then arranged to take place in TUbingen from April 9-11, 1981. The goal of the con- ference was to unite application specialists and methodologists in order to assess current achievements and identify fields needing further improvement. We were fortunate to obtain the interest of the German Society for Blood Transfusion and Immunohaemat6logy D~. Roos, the head of the EDP Work study group of the Section 1 of this. Society did substantially influence the programme. Many of the papers actually reflect accomplish- ments of his research and of the work study group. We also consider ourselves fortunate to win Prof. C. Mueller-Eckhardt, current president of this Society, to give an introductory address.