Equipment Borrowing

One of the great things that our Hall Councils do in the residence halls is purchase equipment that residents can borrow (as well as fixed equipment like table tennis tables). This includes items such as billiards balls and sticks, movies on DVD / BD, and video games and systems.

At present, it is difficult for residents to tell what exactly their hall has, and it is even more difficult to see what other halls have. What this can result in is a single DVD movie being purchased 5 or 6 or even 10 times over, when only 2 or 3 residents will want to simultaneously have it. Likewise, when residence halls want to do video game tournaments and want to see what other halls have a Wii (for example), they don't have an easy way to tell who does.

Even worse, the process for borrowing & returning equipment is not consistent campus-wide. Some residence hall staffs have created their own procedures which have limited accessibility to equipment for students. Others have no documented procedure.

The potential solution that was looked at by the Advocacy Subcommittee is to have a database of what equipment is owned by each hall, and where it resides, which would be accessible to all residents. This would help cut down on wasteful purchasing and let students know what is available. Also, developing a unified policy campus-wide for equipment borrowing is the other idea we have looked at, as well as looking at ensuring that students are billed for items they fail to return.

We want to know what you think, so post on the blog about it!