ones. In many ways, the systems of old globular clusters in galaxy halos are positioned just at this interface; they can potentially be exploited to constrain aspects of both local and global star-formation processes, in both protogalactic and present-day settings.

It has, indeed, long been recognized that the global properties of globular cluster systems (GCSs) might be used to good effect as probes of galaxy formation and evolution. (This is especially true of bright early-type galaxies, whose GCSs are more populous and better studied than those in typical spirals like the Milky Way.) For example, following the suggestion that large fractions of the GCSs in ellipticals may have formed in major merger events (e.g., Schweizer 1987; Ashman & Zepf 1992; Zepf & Ashman 1993), and the related discovery of young super star clusters in systems like the Antennae galaxies (Whitmore & Schweizer 1995), much recent discussion has centered on the interpretation of the distribution of metallicities (or broad-band colors) among E-galaxy globulars as clues to their hosts’ dynamical histories (see Geisler, Lee, & Kim 1996; Forbes, Brodie & Grillmair 1997; Côté, Marzke, & West 1998; Kissler-Patig, Forbes, & Minniti 1998). A somewhat older approach has used just the total population 