Lab notebook: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Primary record of research}}

[[File:AGBell Notebook.jpg|thumb|Page from a laboratory notebook of [[Alexander Graham Bell]], 1876.]]

[[File:Otto Hahn's notebook 1938 - Deutsches Museum - Munich.jpg|thumb|Page from the notebook of [[Otto Hahn]], 1938.]]

[[File:Lab notebook for A Test of the Coordinated Expression Hypothesis for the Origin and Maintenance of the GAL Cluster in Yeast.pdf|thumb|Lab notebook with the complete record of the experiments underlying a published [[Scholarly paper|paper]].<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Lang | first1 = G. I. | last2 = Botstein | first2 = D. | editor1-last = Rusche | editor1-first = Laura N | doi = 10.1371/journal.pone.0025290 | title = A Test of the Coordinated Expression Hypothesis for the Origin and Maintenance of the GAL Cluster in Yeast | journal = PLOS ONE | volume = 6 | issue = 9 | pages = e25290 | year = 2011 | pmid = 21966486| pmc =3178652 | bibcode = 2011PLoSO...625290L | doi-access = free }}</ref>]]

[[File:Schablone Logarex 25524-S, Chemie II.jpg|thumb|Chemistry stencils that used to be used for drawing equipment in lab notebooks.]]

A '''laboratory notebook''' ([[colloquialism|''colloq.'']] '''lab notebook''' or '''lab book''') is a primary record of [[research]]. Researchers use a lab notebook to document their [[hypothesis|hypotheses]], [[experiment]]s and initial analysis or interpretation of these experiments. The notebook serves as an organizational tool, a memory aid, and can also have a role in protecting any [[intellectual property]] that comes from the research.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Schnell|first=Santiago|date=2015-09-10|title=Ten Simple Rules for a Computational Biologist's Laboratory Notebook|journal=PLOS Computational Biology|volume=11|issue=9|pages=e1004385|doi=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004385|pmid=26356732|pmc=4565690|bibcode=2015PLSCB..11E4385S|issn=1553-7358 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

==Structure==

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==Open lab notebooks==

{{Main|Open notebook science}}

Lab notebooks kept online have started to become as transparent to the world as they are to the researcher keeping them, a trend often referred to as Open Notebook Science, after the title of a 2006 blogpost by chemist [[Jean-Claude Bradley]]. The term is frequently used to distinguish this aspect of ''Open Science'' from the related but rather independent developments commonly labeled as ''[[open source]]'', ''[[Open access (publishing)|open access]]'', ''[[open data]]'' and so forth. The openness of the notebook, then, specifically refers to the set of the following points, or elements thereof:

#Sharing of the researcher's laboratory notebook online in real time without password protection or limitations on the use of the data.

#The [[raw data]] used by the researcher to derive observations and conclusions are made available online to anyone.

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{{Commons category|Lab notebooks}}

*[http://labs.physics.dur.ac.uk/skills/skills/labbook.php Durham University Guide on Lab Books] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160807070715/http://labs.physics.dur.ac.uk/skills/skills/labbook.php |date=2016-08-07 }}

* NIH training guide for [https://web.archive.org/web/20130217050753/https://www.training.nih.gov/assets/Lab_Notebook_508_(new).pdf Keeping a Lab Notebook]

{{Authority control}}