Notebooks

Janet D. Stemwedel just posted a couple nice articles about notebooks.

The first article brings up the issue of who owns your notebook. This didn't seem too complicated to me because I was taught that the notebook belongs to the lab/university. However, the article and comments bring up a variety of other possibilities.

The second article is a follow-up that breaks down the functions of a notebook. It's a nice breakdown for anyone who hasn't spent lots of time thinking about how they use their notebook. There's also a very nice quote at the end.

If scientific research aimed primarily to turn the efforts of the scientific community to figuring out how various bits of the world work, free and full communication among the members of that community would be a top priority...and open access to laboratory notebooks would be widely viewed as a good thing.