Notebooks
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Brown, Brian Ivan
label: Collection Creator
content: Kearns, Robert W.
label: Collection Creator
content: Kearns, Timothy
label: Collection Creator
content: Quan, John
setName: label: See more items in
content: Robert W. Kearns Papers
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1954 - 1994
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.1406, Series 2
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: There are thirty-four invention notebooks (1963-1986) comprising two cubic feet of the overall collection. The notebooks belong to Kearns as well as engineers John Quan, Brian Ivan Brown, and Timothy Kearns, son of Robert Kearns. 

Bound, paginated, and dated, the notebooks contain sketches, schematics, calculations, data, telephone numbers, and details about materials, costs, testing data, bibliographic data for articles, listings of office hours, and descriptions for many of Kearns's projects and inventions.  The notebooks present a comprehensive overview of his ideas and are significant to understanding his creative process and how his ideas changed or did not change over time. The majority of the notebooks are arranged in chronological order and therefore researchers can see Kearns's work unfold. Some of the notebooks are labelled and contain indices. For example, Volume 1 is labelled "Masters Thesis Accelerometers."  Many of the notebooks are stamped with a "PO' to indicate a "protective order" followed by a number [PO 11159] and many of the notebooks were used during court proceedings as exhibits.   The protective order restricted access to the notebooks which were filed with the court, or were to be filed with the court at a future date.

During litigation proceedings with Ford Motor Company, Kearns covered and sealed many notebook pages, blocking portions of the record for defendants review.  Kearns noted that this sealed work product contained within the notebooks consisted of work that was either 1) incomplete, 2) beyond the scope of the case against Ford, or  3) not covered by patent applications. Kearns sought legal protection for these pages. Previously covered and sealed pages have been unsealed by Archives Center staff. A list citing volume/logbook number, pagination, and a description of sealed content is in Series 7.