Erin,

An institution I once worked for tells potential borrowers that their
requests require a year's processing time. This is to allow for permissions
from all involved (from the subject curator up to the vice-president of
collections), conservation assessment and treatment, evaluation of the
borrowing institution, and then arranging for crating and shipping. It
sounds like a long time, but that time was really needed to cover every
requirement.

Hope this helps.

Martha Katz-Hyman
Independent Curator

On Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 10:58 AM, Erin McKeen Johnston <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Apologies for the cross-posting.
>
> Hello All,
>
> I am trying to figure out what the average processing time is for outgoing
> loan requests, professional best practices/ industry standards, etc.  How
> much time does your institution require as a minimum for processing
> outgoing loan requests?  9 months?  6 months?  How did you determine this
> processing time? Is this time frame written into your Collections
> Management Policy?  Is it posted on your website or somewhere else publicly
> accessible?  Are there published best practices anywhere about this?
>
> Slightly different question based on your experience: in your professional
> opinion, how much processing time is ideal for outgoing loan requests?
> In a past life I worked at a institution where 6 months processing time
> was the policy but in reality this time frame was often very challenging
> and 9 months would have been ideal.  Getting policy updated was challenging
> for a variety of reasons but the reality was we were always crunched for
> time.
>
> Thanks in advance for any responses and feel free to email me directly at
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Best,
> Erin
>
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