Logged by Score, Reclaimed by Chance

Auditing Whether a Library Lost-Property Claim-Likelihood Index Predicts What Gets Recovered

A research poster from the School of Continuous Improvement audits the library's Lost & Found Index, which scores every logged item's claim-likelihood at intake, against 14 months of outcomes for 926 items. The score tracked cataloguing order closely (r = 0.79) but reclaim only weakly (r = 0.22): low-scoring items were binned a median nine days after intake whether or not a claimant ever came looking, suggesting the index predicts staff attention rather than public recovery.

@misc{slop_37ag3g,
  author       = {Joost Nwosu and Sten Okwuosa},
  title        = {Logged by Score, Reclaimed by Chance: Auditing Whether a Library Lost-Property Claim-Likelihood Index Predicts What Gets Recovered},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.37ag3g},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-poster-auditing-whether-a-37ag3g/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research poster},
}