Vol. 38, No. 18

2-19-2008
By: Adam King

Missing something? Campus Lost and Found just might have it

When people lose items around campus, the knee-jerk reaction is to believe they’re gone and will never be seen again. Who in their right mind would turn in a wallet full of money and credit cards or an expensive cell phone or science calculator?

But Theresa Thayer, manager of Campus Lost and Found and Key/Card Control, said there are more good Samaritans at Ohio State than people realize.

It’s why her storage closet stays full year round.

And because most people don’t make the effort to track down their property, only a small percentage of discovered items are reunited with their owners.

“People assume the worst, but there are a lot of honest people out there who turn things in all the time,” Thayer said.

Roughly 70 percent of the recovered items belong to students, Thayer said, with the most popular being sunglasses, cell phones, wallets, purses, calculators and spiral notebooks.

The majority of the buildings on campus have their own lost and found, and anyone who loses something should check with that building’s coordinator, the professor whose class it might have been left in or the janitorial staff first.

But if any of those items aren’t claimed after 90 days or if anything is found outside, they make their way to the main depository in the basement of Central Services Building.

Ten years ago the Lost and Found was awash in pagers, but these days cell phones are the items people lose most. It’s sometimes easy to reunite people with their phones, especially when “mom” or “dad” is in the phone book list and a quick call to either one makes an ideal resolution.

For other items with identification in them, Campus Lost and Found student employee Joni Teders will see if the owner has a campus Webmail address and send an e-mail alert.

She also tries to locate owners by searching the “Find People” link at osu.edu, so anyone listed should make sure their information is current.

“If someone lost something labeled, they should definitely check their campus e-mail,” Teders said. “The subject line will say something like ‘OSU Lost and Found’ or ‘Found Item.’”

Thayer, who has been in charge of Lost and Found for 11 years, said labeling should be rule No. 1 for people with important, expensive or irreplaceable items.

Rule No. 2 is patience.

Teders got a call one day from a fellow who had lost his keys. After he described them, he hung up in a huff when told they weren’t there. Not five minutes later, they turned up, but Lost and Found didn’t have any contact information for him and the keys were never claimed.

Some items are just difficult to return. External storage devices such as jump drives or data CDs can’t be searched by Lost and Found because of the potential for a computer virus infection. They usually are discarded after the 90-day holding period.

Lost and Found also receives oodles of clothing, which it keeps only 30 days because of the volume turned in. But if any items seem like they are expensive or of great personal value, the department will keep them longer than 90 days.

There was one time, however, Lost and Found was swimming in unclaimed umbrellas, and on a particularly rainy day the staff handed them out to passing students just to get rid of them.

Years ago, Thayer put a lot of thought and research into what to do with unclaimed items. She wanted to give back to the students, so anything retired from Lost and Found goes to one of three campus organizations: Buckeye Bargains Thrift Shop run by the OSU Women’s Club, Friends of the OSU Libraries and the College of Optometry Student Volunteers for Optometric Services to Humanity, which accepts prescription glasses and sunglasses to refit for people in impoverished countries.

“We donate every other month, if not quarter, a large amount of items to Buckeye Bargains,” Thayer said. “We just don’t have room to keep it all. But it’s really a source of pride that we are able to give back and our donation program is really well-received.”

It’s a bit depressing for Teders when people show up and their items aren’t there. But she often gets more excited than the owners when she can reunite them with their lost goods, especially since she puts so much effort into finding them.

“I feel like a detective,” she said.

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