Field Notes

Original field notes, made by ISGS researchers, are filed in the Map Room. Historically, numbered 5 x 8 inch notebooks were assigned to all ISGS researchers to record their work in the field. There is no list of whom the notebooks were assigned to originally. Although numbered field notebooks are no longer assigned, some old numbered notebooks are still being returned to the Map Room. Present day scientists turn in informal, unnumbered field notebooks for processing and storage as they complete their field projects.

Recent notebooks that are received are indexed under each researcher and the counties covered by the notes. In the past, however, Survey researchers found that trying to locate field notes on a particular area was very difficult. Transcription of field notes was begun to make the notes retrievable by location. The original field notes were typed, sketches reproduced, and locations pin-pointed on the township and range grid on each page. Notebooks of traverse notes or plane table levels were not transcribed. These typed notes were filed in county note books by section, township and range. For example, all field notes (that had been "typed") about Champaign County written by any ISGS researcher would be found in the Champaign County notebook.

Map Room staff transcribed the most useful field notes first. They looked to find the notebooks which had been used most often and began with those. Once a field notebook was chosen and transcribed, it was expedient to transcribe all the other available notebooks by that same researcher while his handwriting and method of recording locations were fresh in their minds. Therefore, there is no alphabetical or chronological order to the completion of transcriptions. The transcription of field notes ceased in 1981 when Map Room staffing was decreased.

Two files of field note books are maintained. County notebooks are filed alphabetically by county and include much of the information recorded prior to 1981. Original notebooks are filed alphabetically by researcher.

Visitors may use these notebooks in the Map Room; ISGS staff may also use them in their offices.