Modern science is the result of many centuries of work, and most innovations and discoveries in science are built upon something that came earlier. Even the famed Isaac Newton stated that he owed many of his discoveries to the work done by “giants” before him such as Galileo and others. This is still true today, and many years of research, trial and error, and even “happy accidents,” so to speak, result in today’s discoveries and innovations. Science is a field that requires a lot of data, and for millennia scientists have made use of engineering lab notebooks and lab notebooks, or variations thereof, to note the results of their experiments and record data. Science relies heavily on data for progress, and archival materials and old science notebooks show countless charts, diagrams, anatomy sketches, and much more. Anything from electric currents to sketches of aquatic plant species may be put in scientific lab notebooks. Engineers, too, need such recording materials, and engineering lab notebooks may be commonplace. Students may easily get their own engineering lab notebooks from their college campus, and professionals may buy and use engineering lab notebooks from wholesalers.

Science Work and Study

Many students of the sciences and engineering make use of engineering lab notebooks, and of course, professionals out in the field do so as well. This ranges from pharmaceutical research and genetic modification all the way to biochemistry. This all starts with the paper itself to make these notebooks, and there is plenty of it to go around. Computers and the Internet are massive, and they have boundless use, but paper is hardly obsolete. Most often, students and professionals make use of these engineering lab notebooks and more to conveniently draw or write down whatever they need to, and wholesale supplies of such notebooks can be found with ease for professionals. Students, meanwhile, may buy these notebooks from their campus store and may even get extra notebooks from office supply stores or the office supply section of a grocery store. Such notebook are often spiral back notebooks, and may be either college or wide ruled and have many pages in them. Some of them even have thicker construction paper dividing the papers into distinct sections.

Paper, as it has for centuries, comes from the wood pulp of trees, and this is time-honored work. Today, the United States, China, and Japan together make up just over 50% of the entire world’s paper production, and a number of tree species are used for this work. Many paper wholesalers today get their paper from these producers, and that includes making anything from enveloped to memos to notebooks for everyone to use. Office supply stores and others may get wholesale notebook supplies from these companies and offer them to customers. Such customers may include college students who need notebooks for their classes. And of course, paper is one of many recyclable materials, and many responsible students may recycle their paper notebooks when they are done using them. Some notebooks and their materials may be useful for a later class, but in other cases, a student may take their completed notebook and deposit it into paper recycling. This can help ease strain on today’s forests that are logged for wood pulp, and this can help contribute to the “go green” initiative that calls for preserving natural forests and biomes.

Another option for these notebooks is to digitally scan their contents. Many offices today make use of large document scanning companies to digitize their paper documents into their private servers and Cloud storage, but this can be done on a smaller scale, too. A student or scientist may make photocopies of the pages in their notebooks and preserve anything from mathematics to charts and diagrams to test results and animal or plant sketches. The user may put these files onto their computer or work server, and they can e-mail these pages to anyone who might use them. This can also create permanent copies of these pages that won’t be destroyed in a fire or floods, or someone throwing away the notebook by accident. This may also be done to secure information the user doesn’t want unauthorized parties to see. They may scan these pages, put them in secure digital storage, and destroy the paper copy later.

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