Dear Colleagues:

 

The Southwark Local History Library & Archive is in the process of streamlining our collections and creating modern on-line catalogues. In some cases, our historical accessioning processes didn’t appraise material as robustly as modern best practice would; this means that a relatively small number of collections take up an inordinately large amount of space in our document store.

 

For one of these collections, we’re working with its depositing organisation, who seem willing to fund a project post to process it. I’ve been asked to scope and cost the project – basically, our contact with the organisation needs to be able to explain how long the project is likely to last, and therefore how much the staff costs are likely to be.

 

Are there any resources out there that would help me map out how long it would take to process a collection, based on its size? For what it’s worth, it’s a mixture of material, but quite a lot of it is easy to catalogue (register volumes) and quite a lot more is ripe for de-accessioning (records with a finite lifespan, that is now up). It would be ideal if I could provide figures for both an initial survey (focussing on finding de-accessionable material), and also for the entire process of surveying, appraising, weeding, and cataloguing the collection. Is there anything in particular I should be highlighting? Also, thinking ahead a bit, are there any guidelines for working out how many boxes I'll need to pack it all into?

 

Thanks very much indeed!

 

Best wishes, Patricia

 

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Dr Patricia Dark

Local History Library & Archive Manager

London Borough of Southwark

Department of Environment and Leisure

 

Southwark Local History Library & Archive

211 Borough High Street

London, SE1 1JA

Office:  020 7525 0249

Webpage: http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/200161/local_history_library