Processing Rates Case Studies

Case Study 1

An archivist decides to process the Christopher Durang papers to a Level II. The collection is 27 linear feet. The material is in good condition, no special treatment is required. Portions of the collection are already in folders, which can be retained. Some material is loose and will need to be sorted and put into folders. Most of the collection will be described to the file level, but a series of printed ephemera will be described at the series level. 

The lower end of the Level II hours per linear foot makes the most sense. 

9 hours x 27 linear feet = 243 hours

When planning for an end date, the archivist took the total hours (243) and divided it by 30 (roughly the amount of hours a full time processor would spend processing in a week, given meetings and other obligations, etc…)

243 hours / 30 hours = 7 weeks

Case Study 2

An archivist determines to process a portion of a collection to a Level III but the majority of the collection will be processed to a Level II. The collection is 13 linear feet total. The portion that will be processed to Level III is roughly 3 linear feet. 

The Level III material is from the 19th century. It is in poor condition and will need to be treated at the item level. The material has no discernible order or natural aggregation. The higher end of hours seems likely. 

22 hours x 3 linear feet = 66 hours

The remaining 10 linear feet of material too is in fairly poor condition but of lesser research value and more easily described in the aggregate. The higher end of Level II makes the most sense. 

14 hours x 10 linear feet = 140 hours

140 hours + 66 hours = 206 hours / 30 hours = 7 weeks

Case Study 3

A student has been hired to describe the folders within the various HTC Clipping files. The material is already arranged, labeled and in folders. For the most part the student will be doing basic data entry. However, there are at times loose materials stuffed in between folders that need to be categorized, put in a folder, and labeled. 

In this case, because the higher level description is already finished and the more time-intensive portion of processing (arrangement) is already complete, using a rough guide of 1 hour per linear foot makes the most sense.