I'd suggest you ask a librarian: http://www.librarian.net/

Paul,

Try YourEncore they will match you up with a high level employee who is retired and looking for just your kind of temporary project work.

Not only will you get someone very experienced and skilled but you will get someone who is looking to dig into something on a project, not long term basis.

PRoales

Paul
I am a researcher interested in temporary work.
Tell me about your project.

miqs

Try Guru.com, Its similar to elance.

I've now managed about 100 projects on RentACoder over the past two years, and have been quite satisfied with it. My affiliate link is presented above; I get a few percentage points of their fee, which is a few percentage points of projects which sometimes run under $10. (I think my total earnings to-date have been something like 66¢; heh.)

One thing that I've found is that these projects need to be managed carefully in order to be successful, and I've actually considered providing an intermediary project management service which does just that. If you're interested, I'd love to have the chance to do this with you. Please let me know; I'm David (at) Beroff (dot) com. Thanks!

Paul - we have quite few Indian technical and MBA types who have done mnay contract research projects. If you describe your needs in a few bullets, I can respond with doable, and if so, approx cost. My email is udai (at) askme (dot) com

BFAnalytics.com. We do mainly web analytics but we've done quantitative analysis for small-scale insurance companies and investment banking firms.

Paul, I've used guru.com to outsource a graphic design project.

Pros:
+ Good interface
+ Easy deliverable based payment system
+ More than 50 bids
+ Found a GREAT US based designer at a great price

Cons:
- More than 50 bids

You can try www.ninemotion.com - similar to elance like marketplace but it also allows you to turn your requirement into a project that you can monitor using built in tools like project plan, issues management, document management, collaboration etc.,