Active collecting of the archives of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory – as well as of other US national laboratories—began in earnest in the late twentieth century as a result of the interest of and agitation by both Historians of Science and Archivists. This paper examines the use and dissemination of knowledge of the histories of the US science laboratories as exemplified by the SLAC Archives and History Office (AHO) experience. We find that the development of the SLAC AHO program has been and continues to be propelled by ongoing exchanges between the two disciplines, shaped by their sometimes limited understanding of each other’s goals, methodologies and constraints, and by the two disciplines’ relationships to the records-creating scientists