From:
Info <info**At_Symbol_Here**ILPI.COM>
Subject:
Re: [DCHAS-L] Phones in research labs
Date:
Jan 10, 2023 17:04 UTC
Reply-To:
ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU>
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In-Reply-To:
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1. Somewhere on every campus in a basement lab etc. there is a place where there is no cell service. And there are places you shouldn’t be taking your phones such as the NMR or magnet lab.
2. Landlines don’t have batteries that might die during an emergency situation.
3. While ubiquitous, folks do forget/lose their phones. And somewhere there is someone who doesn’t have one.
4. Some campuses route their 911 calls through campus services - will that work with a cell?
So my recommendation would be to not necessarily have landlines in each lab, but to have at least one publicly accessible landline on each floor or unit. Think of it in terms of distance to a safety shower or extinguisher by code.
Rob Toreki
A colleague asked:
“My safety question is whether research labs are required to have phones? This used to be a requirement for safety reasons, but it is less clear in these days of ubiquitous cell phones. Our university is switching phone systems and I'm being asked whether we still need these phones in the research labs.”
Best answer is… (you fill in the blank) …
Dave
David C. Finster
Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemistry
Wittenberg University
