Equipment Check In/Out

As a video/photo teacher I am constantly having students check out gear for the day/weekend to comlete projects. For the most part things have gone well in getting my main gear (cameras) back but the support materials like tri-pods, microphones, and extra batteries will occasionally get separated and never find their way back. Sometimes I catch this but like many of us I have better things to be doing then checking every bag that comes back to make sure every battery is there. I have tried multiple sign-out strategies including computer logging, hand-writing lists. Does anyone have any strategies that they use that they find work really well for tracking the in/out of equipment.

Also, I was wondering if anyone knew of a bar-coding program that an individual program could purchase and then I could do check-in/out like the library does?

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Permalink Reply by Katy Scott on April 8, 2010 at 11:26am

You could put a student in charge of the check-in/out process. You can usually find a student who is (for lack of a better word) anal enough to check everything and then report back to you.

I don't know about a separate bar-coding system -- we used to just use the same system as the library. So the tech equipment was tracked through the school library's system.

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Permalink Reply by Allan Foster on April 8, 2010 at 1:42pm

Having done this for a decade, I can tell you that if multiple items in one case are important, then each case must be opened and checked upon return. It helps to have a laminated list attached to each case listing all of the critical included components, because with a list it is often possible to check by feeling for shapes in the nylon bags which at as cases in most situations. But nothing takes the place of eyes. Enlisting student aides is also useful but usually you need to be there in case the aide finds something missing, so that you can deal first hand with the situation.