When keeping research notes, I use a traditional lab notebook. But, more than once I have been tempted to take the time and work out my notes on a computer to keep better track of everything. The benefits of a traditional paper notebook are simple:

• Easy to carry around to any research environment (especially in fish rooms)
• Can quickly j0t down notes and sketches
• No need for a power plug nearby
• Notes do not accidentally get deleted or lost

However, a digital notebook has one overwhelming advantage in my opinion:

• Ease of locating important notes

The ability to tag notes with keywords, organize them by date or topic can cut down on hours of flipping through a lab-book to locate that tidbit of information you need to continue with your data analysis. Personally, I’m planning to combine the best of both worlds and enter important information in a virtual Google Docs lab notebook. The reason I’ll go with Google Docs is that I can access it from any computer (our lab has more than one, and access on any particular one depends on who is using what).

One of the reasons I am considering Google Docs is for it’s ease of access, and ease of use. But there are also plenty of Google tutorials available for Docs and other Google applications. In addition, I trust my data is safe with Google, but I still wouldn’t use the notebook for any crucial information. It would mostly be for those things you need to process data at the end of the day, and might not easily find in a traditional notebook. Some other science bloggers have mentioned the use of virtual notebooks, but which method you use really seems to depend on your research needs. For some, taking notes within a particular software program, such as Mathematica works best. I, unlike Philip at BioCurious, would worry about being able to access my notes down the road if appropriate readers are no longer available. That worry might stem from my frustration of not being able to open older version SPSS output files in newer versions of the program, but that really doesn’t mean the problem exists with other applications.

Graduate students are notoriously known for trying to save money. They’re not very different from any other student in that respect, and around the holidays we’re already digging far enough into our pockets. There shouldn’t be a need to spend tens of dollars just on gift wrap, I thought this year. Last year’s gift wrap ended up in the garbage in minutes, just before this I managed to take a picture though:

This year, I decided I had spent enough already, and felt bad for buying paper that just ends up going into the trash within minutes. Exacerbated with the fact that I don’t have a Christmas tree set up, and therefore packages are not exactly decorating my house (and can therefore be justified for being wrapped in decadent paper and ribbon for the sake of turning my house into a “House & Home” photo shoot set), I’m going with a different strategy.

While preparing for the beginning of the new year, I also cleaned out some of my older magazines and journals to make space for new knowledge coming my way in 2010. Already in the recycle bin, I pulled back out the glossy journals and travel magazines and took them apart. I usually keep scientific journals with interesting key articles in my field, but considering you can get anything online I am careful about what journals I accumulate. Nevertheless, I always come back with a bag full of them from conferences, and end up realizing half of them are not actually related to my field of work at all. So, although interesting, I will not look through them more than once and they end up being recycled.

Here is my answer to holiday (or birthday gift) wrapping that I think looks really cool: it’s the Geek-Wrap! Not only good for the environment (using paper once more than it was supposed to be), it is good for your frugal-graduate-student-wallet, and looks pretty cool too.

My interpretation of gift wrap (or geek wrap):
re-use old journals to wrap gifts for the holidays or birthdays

Let’s just see if anyone but the researcher get’s the joke Merry Christmas!!

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