ABSTRACT
Before we can discuss Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS), we must first understand the technology and tools that enabled the creation of these sophisticated software packages that are replacing scientists’ notebooks. Table 1 outlines a brief description of the technological events relevant to this through today. With the pace that technology is moving, there will undoubtedly be many more advancements after the publication of this book. The evolution of LIMS is an interesting one. In the beginning, there were scientists with laboratory notebooks and everything was hand-written: dates, experimental designs, results, comments, observations, and more. In the early days of computer-based LIMS, there were host-based systems connected to terminals by serial lines: all of the processing was performed on the host. Upon completion of the processing, the host would post results to the terminals within the laboratory. These systems lacked flexibility.
