At the Bench: A Laboratory Navigator by Kathy Barker

At the Bench: A Laboratory Navigator
by Kathy Barker

Simply put, this is a book that answers all the questions that you might or will have in joining a new lab. It even provides advice on many things we, as scientists in training, would never come to notice but are truly important. As lab training has always depended on mentoring, we lack a systematic way of learning how to start out in a lab; and this is a book that fills in that gap.

I first came upon this book slightly more then two years ago (don't remember if I wrote about the book back then, I couldn't find the post now, though), wondering around the school library as an undergrad, looking for good books to kill time. Some how I noticed this book on the shelf and already learned a lot by flipping through it then. However, I was just an undergrad and more then half of the book was meant for graduate students and postdocs, so I though I should buy the book when I goto grad school.

Well, here I am, just entered grad school, and to my surprise, they gave out a copy of this book to every new student at the orientation! Our program organizers sure do know how to help students get the most out of their lab rotations :)