Angela Winzey hurried to class, but when the psychology major arrived, she realized she had left her notebook on a campus bench.

“I took out my composition book to sit on and left it on accident on my way to class,” said Winzey, 18. “I came back for it and I guess someone took it."

While a misplaced item may seem lost forever, students can continue to search for lost items beyond its last known location. SF State has many known and obscure lost and found holding areas where misplaced, forgotten, and lost items are turned in.

According to an e-mail from Chief Kim Wible at the Department of Public Safety, SF State has 16 listed lost and found holdings on campus and one main lost and found office. Items from the Student Union information desk and the library’s circulation desk are collected by DPS every Friday, Wible added.

Kong Moua, 21, works in Humanities 125, a mailroom and lost and found office, and sees many lost items, such as disks, keys, eyeglasses and cell phones.

The content of the cabinet Moua works with is currently complete with a helmet, several binders and folders, and more than a dozen books. Another cabinet holds scarves and clothing.

“I think people lose a lot, but I am not sure they really know about lost and found,” Moua said.

He added that mailroom attempts to locate people who lose their wallets or purses.

Many administrators or reception at department offices on campus say their offices inadvertently hold lost and found items.

At the Science building, Rebecca Shonkwiler, the administrative analyst for the School of Engineering, also works with an unlisted or "unofficial" lost and found station. Her experience with the station has provided her with a tip for students.

“Students who lose things should look in the building they lost it,” she said. “But if they lost it in one room, they should find the department that has a class after that because usually students and faculty turn it in into that department.”

Although there are numerous lost and found stations on campus, not every story is one of success.

Liberal studies major Sonja Garnett, 21, lost her wallet and could not remember where she last had it. She believed that it fell out of her backpack. Disappointed that she was without her ATM card and license, she went to the information desk at the Student Center, but all to no avail.

Another DPS-listed lost and found holding is located at the check out counter at the library.

According to Ed Liddle, head of circulation services, the most precious lost items are notebooks that are most valuable and misplaced during hectic midterm and final times.

The number one lost and found items are cell phones, said James Watson, the music materials manager for Creative Arts Technical Services in Creative Arts who also oversees a DPS-listed lost and found holding.

Watson, who works in Creative Arts room 160, generally receives items from the BECA, music, and theatre departments. He also receives items from the Fine Arts building, particularly from the cinema, art, and design departments.

Those who work with lost and found not only manage the items, but also help distraught people locate their possessions. According to Wible, the lost and found office once received a call from a man who attended an event on campus and misplaced a hat that his daughter gave him.

“He sounded upset on the phone, and you could tell that he really didn’t want to have to tell his daughter that he had lost the hat,” Wible said.

DPS was able to locate the missing hat, which was held at the Student Union’s lost and found and reunited the item with the worried man.

According to Wible, students should label all important items with their name and contact information.

“Even if it's a textbook you plan on returning at the end of the semester, you can always put a removable label in there,” Wible said. “Planners, notebooks full of notes, these things are almost irreplaceable for a busy college student.”

Students can call in items or speak with the property clerk at the campus' main lost and found office at DPS between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. and is located on North State Drive, east of Lakeview Center.

Unclaimed lost and found items after six months are destroyed or donated.