In the area of the mathematical sciences, a national information system will principally be concerned with the dissemination (including publication) rather than the creation of primary information. Here "dissemination" refers to both general distribution of information which is not responsive to specific pre-existing inquiries as well as demand dissemination which does respond to specific requests. Part I discusses the need for an information system for the mathematical sciences (ISMS) and proposes some ISMS access systems. An access system is one which provides the user access to the comprehensive corpus of existing information that may be of interest to him. Part II discusses some proposed ISMS access systems from the standpoint of their "automatability" and their connection with the publication process. (NH)