Founded in 1910, the Forest Products Laboratory was created as an interdisciplinary research facility to solve difficult problems important to sustainable forest management and to a diverse wood products industry. The laboratory—a federal facility located on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus —conducts cutting-edge research that has transformed old industries and created new ones, including lumber production, corrugated containers, recycled paper, production of alcohol from wood, commercial cultivation of shiitake mushrooms, and hundreds of other businesses. This book illustrates what can be accomplished when the American public supports a federal laboratory that works in cooperation with universities, industries, and associations.
It includes:
- concise summaries of 65 significant achievements of the Forest Products Laboratory, with citations to the original research report
- a comparison of wood utilisation in 1910 and in 2010
- examples of the financial impact of the wood products industry on job creation and on the American economy
- colour photographs throughout illustrating research initiatives and products, forest ecosystems, and the FPL facilities over the course of a century
- three reprinted reports that provide in detail the history and impact of selected examples of FPL research
- a list of many of the people who have worked at the FPL during its one-hundred-year history.
The curious browser will find this inviting, colourful book full of surprising and remarkable information about the many ways that wood products affect daily life. Scientists, manufacturers, policymakers, and other experts will find it an extraordinary reference and history of significant accomplishments in forest products research.
