ThisvolumeconstitutestheproceedingsoftheFifthInternationalConferenceon Flexible Query Answering Systems, FQAS 2002, held in Copenhagen, Denmark on October 27-29, 2002. FQAS is the premier conference for researchers and practitioners concerned with the vital task of providing easy, ?exible, and intuitive access to information for every type of need. This multidisciplinary conference draws on several re- arch areas, including databases, information retrieval, knowledge representation, soft computing, multimedia, and human-computer interaction. Previous FQAS events were held in 1994, 1996, 1998,...