Most notebooks are highly technical and difficult to follow without subject expertise. However, researchers sometimes inserted reports, correspondence, or meeting records into the books. More frequent are printouts, charts, and photographs pasted onto the pages.

As notebook titles are often incomplete or nonexistent, researchers studying a specific technology should consult progress reports (Record group 27) and technical reports (2464.69) to discover the names of the scientists involved.

Information about some missing notebooks can be found in the card index maintained by the Research Library (see Record group 3, Series XII).

Special Series

Notebooks with the prefix “G” (for government) were used for classified government contract work. They were stored separately until the restriction expired (usually five years or less).

Notebooks with the prefix “P” (for Princeton) were introduced in 1944 and were largely phased out by the end of 1954. Instead of being issued numbered bound notebooks, researchers turned in papers to be bound together and numbered. As a result, these notebooks often contain a wider range of materials, including correspondence, reports, and meeting records. Particularly valuable are the notebooks of Edward W. Herold, Harold B. Law, Rolf W. Peter, and Robert P. Stone.

Some notebooks were given the prefix “N” (for new?) starting in the early 1980s, but the reason is unclear. Patent disclosure notebooks, used during the 1930s and early 1940s, are also included in this record group. Finally, some scientists turned in notebooks not issued by RCA.

The Elmer Sperry papers contain a complete record of his published patents and his laboratory notebooks. These notebooks, which do have some gaps, can be used to trace the evolution of Elmer Sperry's approach to arc lighting, street railways, electrochemistry, gyroscopic technology, internal combustion engines, and the technological problems he encountered with each of these projects. Sperry was very articulate in his diaries and explored a variety of technological and scientific issues in them. It is evident that he drew on the work of a number of academic physicists and mathematicians and tried to apply their insights to experimental problems. Sperry's diaries contain a large number of sketches which reflect an appreciation of modern science. However, the diaries also show that in many ways Sperry was a nineteenth-century artist-engineer rather than a modern scientist whose insights are based on mathematical models.