One school accumulated 20 five-pound bottles of mercury. Each year they ordered from the same list used the year before! Not a good idea. You need to know what you have and where it's located. Whether you decide to do it with sheets of paper, index cards, or computers, you need to have a chemical inventory. It's pretty hard to comply with OSHA and EPA regulations without one. It's pretty hard to know what to order without one.

If you decide to use a computer to keep your records, you can use any database software program you like. Or, you can buy a program from one of the several vendors which offer the software packages. Programs are available that run on either IBM or Apple/Macintosh type systems. Look at the features and see what meets your needs. How easily can additional chemicals be added to the database? Can the total list be sorted or indexed? How fast does it search? Can extra fields of information be added? How many?

Dr. James A. Kaufman is the founder and president of The Laboratory Safety Institute (LSI) www.labsafety.org, an international, non-profit center for safety in science and science education. LSI provides workshops, seminars, onsite training programs, lab safety program development consultations, facilities inspections and regulatory compliance assistance. Contact LSI with all your lab safety questions: 800-647-1977 or info@labsafety.org.