Oliver,

Last year I contracted to do similar work with a collection of 2,000
historic items. I'll be interested to see other responses, having had no
such advice when I embarked on such a project.

There is some safety for you in doing it on a per hour basis, if your
employer is comfortable not knowing what the total job will cost. (There
also may be other hiring issues involved.) But research time can be a
lot, hard to prove and the employer might start feeling you are taking
advantage.

However, if you contract for it as a total fee, you may come out ahead.
You are having to research a very diverse group of objects, some of
which will take lots more time than others, so a 'fee per item' isn't
really practical. Also, some things, such as creating a database takes
as much time for ten items as for 350.

For the RFD I submitted, I ran through in my head (and on paper) every
bit of the job, from travel time and costs to the work site, to
producing the final report. I estimated how much time it would take me
to do each part of the job, and added up all out-of-pocket costs,
purchase of equipment (camera), etc.  I built in some leeway and put my
bid in as a total. For the cost of my time, I looked at what I had made
per hour (and per month) in various other comparable level jobs, the
going rate for salaried positions in the area with the same skills, as
well as what I thought I was willing to do it for.

Get out your calculator and try several approaches to projecting any
given cost --figure totals, averages, etc. for various times and costs,
until you are comfortable that you've arrived at reasonable figures.
Don't forget to build in any fees or taxes that you'll have to pay as an
individual that are normally paid by an employer. This can be as much as
33% in the U.S., for Social Security, etc., so if you normally work for
$30 an hour, charge $40.

Two things I underestimated: the time it took for data entry, and the
time and materials I put in to the final reports. Fortunately, I came in
under projected cost on other things, so I still came out ahead. I
learned to always build in regular costs --air fare, film developing,
etc., even when you think you will find discounts or can do it some
other way cheaper. That way, if you can't find discounts, you will still
come out o.k.

Also remember to have stated in the contract how you'll be paid during
the course of the project (with remainder on completion), so you can
recover the costs that you've fronted in a reasonable amount of time.

Lucky Sperlin
Heritage Management
Chic, CA



Original message:

"Recently I have been asked to catalogue a small, but very comprehensive
collection of fine and decorative art.  The collection totals
approximately 350 objects including paintings, furniture, antiquities,
religious reliquary, prints and works on paper, photography
etc.…  The job entails documenting each object digitally, creating a
database, data input and detailed research of each object
including provenance, artist biography, description of the work etc.…  I
was wondering if anyone could tell me if there is a standard
fee for such a job.  Is it an hourly wage, a set amount, or a per record
format?

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