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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