More than $12,000 has been taken from the Tyson Building laboratory since spring semester ended.

Tyson Building staff members reported two burglaries to Penn State Police Services, and it is unknown if the two incidents are connected.

The most recent item missing was a $2,100 digital projector that was taken between Aug. 29 and Sept. 3. The other item was a $10,000 microscope taken sometime between May 20 and June 1.

"It's not hard to imagine the two being connected, we do sometimes see multiple items taken from the same building," said Bill Moerschbacher, Penn State Police supervisor. "The buildings are used day and night, and the more access there is to the building, the higher the risk there may be."

Despite both incidents, the security in the Tyson Building will not be changing at this time, Moerschbacher added.

All of the rooms in the Tyson Building are secured, but not all of them with the same security precautions. Some of the rooms have only a locked door entrance while others are monitored with silent alarms.

"The level of security will vary depending on what they have stored in that specific room," Moerschbacher said.

The digital projector taken from 309 Tyson Building was located in a room monitored by a door contact alarm. To gain entrance to the room itself, one must punch the correct code in, Moerschbacher said. However, the system is not always operating.

"Generally, it is common, though, to have the system deactivated during the day," Moerschbacher said.

The microscope had been stored in a locked lab that only professors and their graduate students had access to and is primarily used for research in horticulture, Michele Brown, senior research technologist said.

"The policy we have kept is that the door is locked at all times, and up until now we have never found it otherwise," Brown said.

The students are required to sign-out all equipment before they can remove it for use, which no one had done for the microscope, Brown said.

"Sometimes things get misplaced or someone moves it and forgets to inform us about it and then it turns up," said Jonathan Lynch, professor of plant nutrition. "We really try to be careful."

However, Brown and her colleagues have spoken to the students who have access to the room and they are equally puzzled about what happened to the microscope, Brown said.

"We have a really good group of students, so I have no idea what has happened," Brown said.

Both incidents are still under investigation by Penn State Police Services.

"It seems doubtful at this time that we are going to get the microscope back," Lynch said.