After several years of consideration and preparation, the first of Alexander Shulgin's lab books were scanned in 2007 and made available online. The lab books contain detailed experience reports about a wide variety of psychoactive substances as well as notes on chemical processes, formulas, sketches, and hand-drawn graphs.

The Shulgins' trusted assistants, gregM and Tania, took on the labor-intensive process of redacting the names of individuals whose privacy should be protected. The scanning was facilitated by Archive.org and performed by gregM and Raj Kumar. Paul Daley and Erowid staff have digitizing and hand-redacted additional lab books.

Erowid continues to seek volunteers to transcribe the texts and edit images to make them more readable. We are currently at the stage of transcription and proofreading of transcriptions. If you would like to help with this project, please Volunteer Today!

Since 2008, Erowid volunteers have worked countless hours toward transcribing and proofreading lab books produced from the 1960s through the 1980s by Dr. Alexander Shulgin. The intended purpose of this project has been to create searchable versions of these valuable documents.

The lab books scanned and transcribed so far -- Books 1, 2, 3, 6 and 8 -- have fallen into two categories: Pharmacology books (mainly comprised of experience reports), and "Chemistry" books, (comprised of lab notes, "dirty pictures" (sketches of molecules), and spectra print-outs from analytical instruments).

After many many hours of dedicated volunteer time, a proof-of-concept public beta version of searchable Lab Book 6 (PDF) -- one of the Chemistry books -- was released in September 2012. This was followed in December 2012 by the release of searchable Lab Book 1 (PDF) from the Pharmacology series, and in March 2013 by the release of searchable Lab Book 2 (PDF) from the Pharmacology series. A special congratulations and thank you for the result of this effort goes to the volunteer project lead, Shawn.

Books 6, 1, and 2 demonstrate what the transcribed Shulgin Lab Books will look like, after the process of deciphering, transcribing, and creating a facsimile takes place. In a few places, given Shulgin's handwriting, the age of the documents, and the peculiarities of special characters used in chemistry notation, volunteers were not able to decipher some bits of text. In these cases, text is indicated either in red or highlighted in yellow. (Eventually we'd love to crowd-source the deciphering of these remaining bits of text.)

Erowid is seeking comments, suggestions, and questions on the look/feel/functionality of this searchable PDF (for comparison, this PDF of Book 2 (15MB) shows what volunteers had to work with when transcribing). Please contact corrections@erowid.org with ideas or feedback.

Book 1

• Book 1 Searchable PDF (Public Beta) (4.7MB)
• Color PDF (22MB)
• Black and White PDF (8MB)
• Book 1 File List
• Archive.org's Shulgin Lab Book Page

Book 2

• Book 2 Searchable PDF (Public Beta) (2.8MB)
• Color PDF (100MB)
• Fuzzy Low Resolution Color PDF (15MB)
• Black and White PDF (8MB)
• Book 2 File List
• Alexander Shulgin's Pharmacology Lab Books: Book 2 Notes - Mar 26, 2008

Book 3

• Book 3 File List

Book 6

• Book 6 Searchable PDF (Public Beta) (11.4MB)
• Book 6 File List

Book 8

• Book 8 File List
• Archive.org's Shulgin Lab Book Page