Gert Says
a rather irreverent discusssion
When You Can't Do It All |
If you are not sure that you have enough staff or time, investigate if outsourcing
a task would be more time and cost effective. In other words, often someone
who is not part of your staff could perform the task faster and cheaper. However,
quality control needs to be included in your time calculations. For example,
you might be able to solicit volunteers to do a task (cost), but they take
longer (time) and require supervision (quality/time). Or you might hire a
vendor to scan your slides and film, which they can do for $15 an image (cost)
at the rate of 300 (time) a week, but they might not do it with the loving
care you expect (quality/time). Each factor's total effect needs to be calculated
in order to ascertain if outsourcing would be advantageous.
If you want to acquire the skill for further development of the collection,
outsourcing can still be an option. Working with a competent vendor can be
an efficient way to acquire good training. You might also do a select portion
of the scanning and outsource the rest. There are other tasks you might outsource
besides scanning, such as hiring someone to create your own management system
(versus buying an off-the-shelf version), or providing an internship to survey
and prepare the items for digitizing, or hiring temporary clerical work to
enter data.
When you are hiring an ³expert² you do want to take advantage of their expertise
to learn at "the master's knee." However, this works best if you present yourself
as a novice, not as a blank slate. Read some of the literature, learn the
vocabulary or at least get the gist of the subject.
Reasons to Outsource a Task
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You don't have the staff power to perform the task on schedule.
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Your staff lacks the experience and skill to perform the task as cost effectively as a vendor.
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Your staff time is too valuable to cost effectively perform the task that could be done cheaper by others.
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Once the task is completed, your staff would not need to do it again (ie., convert data, develop crosswalks, management systems, standards or create a Web site), and therefore there is little benefit to gaining the necessary skills.
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The task is an elephant in a python, so that even if you have the skill and staff time for maintenance, you do not have it for the creation phase.
When Outsourcing
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Provide the vendor specific, attainable and measurable standards by which you will evaluate the quality of the final product.
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Establish procedures, schedule and costs to redo work that does not meet the agreed upon standards.
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Always assign a staff person to oversee and manage the vendor's work.
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Allot time for the overseer to:
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Learn at the "master's knee," as this process helps evaluate the progress accurately and in addition, possibly helps one gain the skill for the maintenance phase of the project.
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Carefully check for quality control and make corrections.
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Prepare the work to be given to the vendor to process.
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3/10/03
This was originally part of "Managing Your Digitization Project" Winter 2003 - for the Infopeople Project [http://infopeople.org/], supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian. Any use of this material should credit the author and funding source.
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