th Selected papers presented at the 18 Annual Conference of th~ German Classification Society GfKl (Gesellschaft fUr Klassifikation) are contained in this volume of 'Studies in Classification, Data Analysis, and Knowledge Or­ ganization'. The conference took place at the University of Oldenburg in 1994 under the general subject "From Data to Knowledge" and provided an international forum for participants from theory and practice. The interdisciplinary character of GfKI - although aspects concerning clas­ sification and related areas of data analysis are in the center of interest of the activities of the society - is one of the reasons that within a process entitled "From Data to Knowledge" emphasis was laid as well on theoret­ ical contributions as on applications in various fields including information systems and knowledge organization. More than 330 participants could choose their individual program from more than 130 presentations included in the scientific program of the conference.