Library Technology Guides

Libraries which plan local data entry of brief records to match against databases of full bibliographic records may wish to calculate the cost of doing so using data often used in business organizations. The rule of thumb is that a typical operator is capable of sustaining a rate of 4,200 to 5,000 key-strokes per hour. Assuming an operator wage of $6.00 per hour including fringe benefits, the estimated cost of labor for entering a 100 character record is $.12-14, exclusive of any supervision, equipment, or overhead components. Allowing for the verification of recorded strokes, the estimated labor cost will increase to $.24-28 because each record must either be visually verified later or rekeyed a second time and matched electronically to identify errors. If the error rate is 3.5%-the average error rate in insurance studies--another $.01 per record cost will be incurred. The total cost of brief keying is, therefore, $.37-43. To that figure must be added the cost of extracting the full record from the database. That price is usually $.20-50 per record. If a subsequent edit is done incurring another cost of $.24-28, the total cost will be no lower than $.71 and may go as high as $1.11 per record.