NYUAD is a place where your needs can always be met.

Take the equipment loan for example—students, faculty, and staff may borrow a variety of materials from the equipment center. The procedure to borrow any item is quite simple, but it is nevertheless an interactive process, as only when we are willing to “cooperate” with the staff can our demands be satisfied.

This is what usually happens: when greeted by the staff, you first tell the staff that you want to borrow certain equipment, as people can come for different services. Meanwhile, you need to present your NYU ID card to show your identity to the staff. Understanding your demands, the staff then go to check if your item is available. If it is available, he/she will then ask you to hand over your ID card for a scan. . . . If this interaction goes on smoothly, the staff will eventually hand you the item along with your ID card. (And also inform you of the loan period and policies regarding your item.)

You can almost always get the equipment within a minute, but the result is dependent upon the interactive process between the two parties—things can go wrong on either side, say, if someone doesn’t have his/her ID card, or if the staff say the equipment is not available.

To handle this interactive process, staff are employed to work at the equipment center. But why not a machine? It’s a decision to make. Perhaps people are better at interacting with people than a machine can do. Nevertheless, when there is no staff on duty or when they are all too busy, it turns out that people can’t get or return their items easily. Hiring more workers seems a simple solution, but meanwhile there is also a constraint—the total funding is limited.