The conference on the History and Heritage of Science Information Systems was held October 23-25, 1998, in Pittsburgh, pa., prior to the ASIS annual meeting. The conference papers explored the history and heritage of the nature, development, and influence of all types of science information systems world-wide. It was co-sponsored by ASIS, the ASIS SIG History and Foundations of Information Science (IG/HFIS), and the Chemical Heritage Foundation, This was the first conference to explore this topic, and this volume will be of great interest to both historians and current practitioners.