Between the Lines, Beyond the Bench
This exhibition reveals the unexpected in student laboratory notebooks and course materials.
Opens October 7, 2026
Museum Mezzanine
What can a laboratory notebook tell you about the person who wrote it?
Note taking is an integral part of doing science. For students of chemistry, notebooks serve as repositories for lecture notes, records of experiments, and diagrams of apparatus. But they can also capture the individuality of the note taker and life beyond the lab. The newest exhibit in our A Closer Read series explores the more surprising details that can be found in the laboratory notebooks of the past, including elaborate drawings, evidence of mistakes and faulty equipment, and even romance.
Between the Lines, Beyond the Bench features student notebooks from the Institute’s rare books and archival collections from the 1800s and 1900s. Visitors will encounter examples of tidy (and untidy) note taking, meticulous artistry, instructor remarks, unique marginalia, and a love song. The exhibition also includes the laboratory notebook of the celebrated artist Maxfield Parrish (1870–1966), on loan from Haverford College. Parrish, who attended Haverford from 1889 to 1891 before entering art school, created whimsical watercolor illustrations to accompany descriptions of experiments in his chemistry course—a sign, perhaps, that he was already more interested in the artist’s studio than the scientific laboratory.
Between the Lines, Beyond the Bench was curated by curatorial fellow Taylor Bailey, with the assistance of Jim Voelkel, curator of rare books, and Patrick Shea, chief curator of archives and manuscripts.
About A Closer Read: Stories from Our Library Shelves
A Closer Read is a series of exhibitions featuring materials from the Donald F. and Mildred Topp Othmer Library of Chemical History. On display on the mezzanine level of the Science History Institute Museum, these exhibitions use rare books, archival materials, and modern books and journals to share new stories from the history of science.
Featured image: Detail of a page from the course notebook of Louis Payard describing the preparation of azotic (nitric) acid, 1900.
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