Comments on: Lost and Found Flash Drives

By: Christina

Christina — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:08:05 +0000

and we too love that you named your computers after authors! Wish we could do that here.

By: Christina

Christina — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:07:26 +0000

We have the same problem, and we used to keep ours at the ref desk but it got really cluttered. (Back in the day, they went in the box where we also kept lost floppy disks So now we check for a name to contact the person, and the drives are stored in the library’s lost and found behind circ. They discard unclaimed Lost and Found items after one month (books and DVDs go to book sale etc), so we don’t generally get too many piling up. We have a few old ones that we reformatted and have on hand to lend to patrons who need to print from their laptops or otherwise move a file and didn’t bring a flashdrive or the $8 to buy one of our new ones.

By: thediatomaceouscity

thediatomaceouscity — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:19:42 +0000

oh NM I guess that got answered? Duh.

By: thediatomaceouscity

thediatomaceouscity — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:18:49 +0000

So what happens to these? Is there a specific time period after which they’re thrown out?

By: Brian Herzog

Brian Herzog — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:46:20 +0000

@mkelly: we don’t have any set policy on retention. We (try to) date them as we find them, and we’ll keep them for as long as we have room. When it gets full, I’ll pull out the oldest ones, format them, and then staff uses them for work stuff – I don’t know what else to do with them. I feel bad doing that, which is why we try so hard to track down the owner – besides, we don’t get a ton of them, so quickly checking for a resume or whatever, and then calling or emailing the person isn’t too bad.

As for the computers, we’re still transitioning from Windows XP computers to Windows 7, and for the new ones we decided to go with a more generic naming convention. So, instead of Eliot, Gingberg, and Kerouac, we’ve got NF-2, NF-7, etc (which stands for non-fiction #7 because they’re close to the non-fiction stacks). Not quite as much fun, but actually a little more manageable, I’m finding.

By: mkelly

mkelly — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:04:30 +0000

We, too, generally have an odd collection of left-behind memory sticks such as yours. We don’t take time to review saved content for identifying information, which I think is rather generous of your staff.

I’d be interested to know: how long do you retain unidentifiable, unclaimed drives?
… and I think it’s a hoot you’ve named your public computers after authors (we use letters and numbers)

By: John

John — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:23:50 +0000

I always put a readme.txt in the root directory with my name, telephone number and address. Unfortunately the only time I lost a flash drive it didn’t get returned

By: Melissa

Melissa — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:09:24 +0000

I have this same problem at the school library where I am currently working! I try to look for a document with the student’s name on it when I find the drive but when anyone comes looking, I never have the one for which they are looking. I have an enormous collection of flash drives right now! It’s bananas!