MyLabBook is a community website for exploring how to build a good Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) using the open source content management system called Drupal. Our thesis is that by utilizing appropriate Drupal modules, an inexpensive and appropriate ELN can be built for many contexts. This exploration is in conjunction with the University of Houston's biotechnology program.

Because Drupal is free and open source and nearly all of its modules are as well, Drupal provides an inexpensive path to building an ELN. It is also relatively easy to set up and is flexible through using appropriate modules from the thousands that are available on the Drupal website. You can also write your own custom modules fairly easily.

The Drupal framework has numerous social networking modules as well, making it easy to add features to an ELN that can enhance the collaboration process. This means that appropriately sharing data and analysis with someone on the other side of the world can become almost as straightforward as sharing with the people on the other side of your lab bench.