The lab is an important place where discoveries are made, whether the lab is virtual or whether the lab is a physical space where experiments are conducted. It is also a place where the data is acquired, compared and finally conclusions drawn to make the discoveries possible. One feature that is common to most labs is the lab notebook. There are many vendors that have the lab notebook as a product but somehow there does not seem to have enough gained momentum to have a universal product that is easily transferable. This has also been discussed in the nature article as listed below:
The case may be the simplicity. It is very easy to take notes with software like Microsoft Word, Excel or other solutions and so with each lab following their own guideline, there is no common standard that becomes universal. Secondly, a secure place to keep the data is a university or a company server which is so universal that there are many ways to keep the data that there is no standard in place. The number of companies and software in this space offering ELN solutions is enormous and it is not very easy to compare one from the other since they vary in features, simplicity and offerings.This probably is not a comprehensive list and probably will never be! Here is the list of some of the vendors and packages that are out there and in no particular order they are:
OPEN SOURCE:
Mediawiki: This is a Wikipedia software but has been proposed for creating a lab notebook because of its flexibility in users and incorporating media from various sources. However, this may not be the ELN solution that most universities may like because of its flexibility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediawiki
Electronic lab notebook: This is an open source version that is available on Sourceforge. However, the development of this ended sometime ago and no support or any other information is available.
http://collaboratory.emsl.pnl.gov/software/eln/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/eln/
Indigo ELN: This is more of a chemistry ELN rather than a universal ELN solution. However, it is open source and was developed as part of Pfizer’s internal chemistry solution. The framework is more of a data management solution and is easy to store and manage documents or lab records. The company develops add-on’s to make this a more comprehensive solution.
http://ggasoftware.com/opensource/indigo/eln
IARC software: Catherine Voegele has published a paper on universal open source ELN software and more information on the paper is here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23645817
COMMERCIAL:
Labarchives: This is a company that offers the freemium model with 25Mb free storage for free users and then premium storage for other users. Their website advertises their adoption by NIH, Northwestern and a few universities. The data gets stored on their servers and this way gets managed by them. http://www.labarchives.com/
Biochemlabsolutions: This is an unknown company, with unknown support and unknown people on their website but have software available that can be downloaded and then licensed through Paypal. The ELN software is very interesting and may be one that may get used since it allows a user to store the data locally or a public server like Dropbox. The good thing is that much of it is HTML based.
http://biochemlabsolutions.com/ELN/ELN.html
Labtrack: This software meets many conditions that are required by almost all scientists: designed for all laboratories, collaboration tools, legal and regulatory compliance, 21 CFR Part 11, and many other features. The prices range from ~$700 per user onwards but are flexible. The company provides the client and server pieces and it requires the IT department to set up the server that can store the data and also backup the data.
Agilent: Agilent has their own products along with the other software they sell. It has many features and is probably more useful for chemists than Biologists, even though it can incorporate pictures videos and many other analytical instrument formats. Comprehensive, but expensive.
http://www.chem.agilent.com/en-US/products-services/Software-Informatics/OpenLAB-Electronic-Lab-Notebook-(ELN)/Pages/default.aspx
Perkin Elmer / Cambridgesoft: Perkin Elmer bought Cambridgesoft and its products are included in their products now. Their ELN is called E-notebook and is specific for biology and chemistry. Again, similar to Agilent a large comprehensive and expensive but complete solution.
http://www.cambridgesoft.com/Ensemble_for_Biology/ENotebookforBiology/Default.aspx
Labguru: This is ELN software but offers more in the space of lab and sample management. The pricing is about $10 per user per year and it is a place to keep all data and papers and also interestingly sample and vendor management. This is more biology centric.
iLapper: The pricing is similar to Labguru but is more chemistry centric. This is more of an ELN solution but it is one that allows many users to be brought under one umbrella that can be easily managed.
NOTE TAKING SOFTWARE:
This is not a typical ELN solution but many people prefer to keep their notes in just regular format that can be accessed. There are two big vendors in this space and one that offers notebook software slightly modified for the lab. Scientists have argued that the ability to manage data can also be relatively simple as this blog discussed.
Microsoft: Many people keep their notes in Microsoft Word, but others prefer a product called OneNote that enables you to keep images and all other write-up’s in one place.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/
Evernote: Great features and very device agnostic. This is a great note taking application and some scientists have used this very much.
eCAT notebook: Mostly note taking software and not a traditional ELN.
FINAL COMMENTS:
No matter what vendor you choose, backup often, backup the database often and take printout’s of key experiments that can be stored carefully. File and data formats change but the paper copy will always be legible.