Benefits
Getting an inventorying system up and running for your laboratory refrigerators and freezers can be time intensive, but once established provides your lab many benefits:
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Save time by being able to find and access your samples quickly.
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Keep your lab and members of the campus community safe by knowing the contents of your refrigerators and freezers.
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By knowing what is in your freezer you can discard unneeded and expired samples which frees up space. An inventory helps labs be more efficient with space, reducing their need to purchase another freezer, thus saving labs precious research funds and the university money on electricity costs.
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If your laboratory ever needed to relocate to another building on campus or to another institution, an inventory would be required for transport of your samples. By already having an inventory in place, this saves time as you prepare to move.
November 2015 Freezer Inventory Informational Sessions
In November 2015 CU Green Labs and Environmental Health & Safety hosted two Freezer Inventory Informational Sessions at CU Boulder to encourage labs without freezer inventory systems to think about moving in that direction for all the reasons mentioned above. Five different laboratories presented on different options for freezer inventorying systems. Please reach out to any of the individuals below to discuss their freezer inventorying system further, or check out their PowerPoint presentations given at these events.
PowerPoint Presentation by Dave Simpson about Quartzy
Palmer Lab, Biochemistry & BioFrontiers
PowerPoint Presentation by Theresa Nahreini about her paper inventory system
Cell Culture Facility, Biochemistry
PowerPoint Presentation by Zack Sapinsley about Freezer Pro
Seals Lab, Integrative Physiology
PowerPoint Presentation by Paul Dohrmann about Filemaker Pro and Microsoft Access
McHenry Lab, Chemistry & Biochemistry
PowerPoint Presentation by Jessica Henley about Microsoft Excel
Fierer Lab, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology & CIRES