Are there Apps out there for laboratory notebook use? Or, are there notebook apps particularly suitable for laboratory notebooks?

Originally Posted by rwhart007

Are there Apps out there for laboratory notebook use? Or, are there notebook apps particularly suitable for laboratory notebooks?

? do you mean an app that you can take notes with using your finger etc?

something like note taker hd?

It really depends on how you want to use the iPad in regards to the laboratory notes.

If you have the instruction sheet in a document and want to take notes on it, you could import it into an app, such as Note Taker HD to write directly on the instruction sheet to jot down calculations, etc.

No, I was wondering if there were a specialized App for electronic laboratory notebook use. Something formalized. Something like Note taker but more formal and specialized for laboratory use.

There may not be an "official" electronic lab notebook out there yet for the iPad but I am fishing around and trying to locate it if it exists.

Absolutely, there are now lab notebooks for the ipad. The best is CERF from Rescentris. CERF is a top-shelf Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) and centralized data management solution with a dedicated IOS client for the iPad known as iCERF. The iCERF client is free, but you will need to pay for a CERF deployment in your lab. The minimum number of users for a deployment is typically about 5 scientists. Fully 21CFR11 compliant, enterprise grade ELNs are not inexpensive, but CERF is one of the cheaper offerings, and if you can persuade your PI to purchase the system with grant funds, then it will not cost you personally a penny. CERF works well in any lab, no matter what kind of research you do. Current customers include labs working in consumer products, chemistry, life-science, biofuel, clinical, petroleum, academic and government labs.

Nature wrote an article about the paperless lab in January. "Going paperless: the digital lab" by Jim Giles.

One of the people quoted in the article, Jonathan Gross, made an iPad app called Labguru that reformats protocols for bench use. The app also syncs notes recorded to a web app, where experiments can be organized with papers, data files, figures, emails, etc. The iPad and web app are free for individuals.

Originally Posted by rwhart007

No, I was wondering if there were a specialized App for electronic laboratory notebook use. Something formalized. Something like Note taker but more formal and specialized for laboratory use.

There may not be an "official" electronic lab notebook out there yet for the iPad but I am fishing around and trying to locate it if it exists.