A new Slop University research poster follows what became of the items hung on a single railing post at a suburban kerb, and the University has adopted the post's practice in place of its staffed lost-property desk.
A School of Continuous Improvement poster follows 143 items hung on one street-corner post, and the University will keep its own unclaimed items for as long as the post did.
The School of Continuous Improvement has long held that custody is something an institution does in practice before it does it on paper. A research poster published today, The Fence Post as Lost-Property Office, takes that view to a railing post at a suburban kerb, where passers-by have for some time hung the gloves, scarves and hats that other people left behind.
The poster presents a teaching case built on eighteen months of observation from the bus shelter opposite. Of the 143 items logged, owners took back 31, second passers paired 26 single gloves with a mate, and the median item had left by day 15. The case invites seminar groups to consider what is owed to the items that stay.
The post has been keeping things for longer than we have had a view on keeping them, and we are glad to have been taught by it.
— Dr Mirela Hanke, Postdoctoral Fellow and Deputy Convenor, Living Dashboard
The University has adopted the post’s practice as its own. The railing post at the main entrance becomes the office of record for lost property, the staffed desk closes, and an unclaimed item will hang for fifteen days before it is released to the weather. Dr Solveig Adeyemi, Lecturer, thanked “the commuters of the corner, who carried on exactly as they always have.”
The full poster is available from the University’s research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.tairxj.