SOURCES SOUGHT
R -- Serials Subscriptions for National Institutes of Health Division of Library Services
- Notice Date
- 4/29/2014
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 519190
— All Other Information Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, Office of Administration, 6011 Executive Blvd, 5th Floor, Rockville, Maryland, 20852-3804, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20852-3804
- Solicitation Number
- NIHOD2014019
- Archive Date
- 6/13/2014
- Point of Contact
- Sharmaine Gerstel, Phone: 301-594-3744
- E-Mail Address
-
gerstels@mail.nih.gov
(gerstels@mail.nih.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- 4/29/2014 SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE Sources Sought Number: NIHOD2014019 Project title: Serials Subscriptions for National Institutes of Health Division of Library Services The Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health (NIH) Division of Library Services (DLS), is seeking qualified large and small business concerns including, 8(a) small businesses, Woman-owned, small disadvantaged businesses, HUBZone small businesses and Service-disabled Veteran small business concerns with the capabilities to fulfill this requirement. The intended procurement will be classified under North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 519190. "This is a Sources Sought notice. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is for market research purposes and will be used to obtain information regarding the availability and capability of all qualified sources to perform this potential requirement." Background The National Institutes of Health Division of Library Services supports the information needs, including access to journal literature, of all researchers, clinical staff and administrators employed by NIH. Since 2004, DLS have provided these services to a number of other agencies of the Health & Human Services Department (HHS). Over the last 20 years, the DLS successfully shifted completely from print to online-only access for the journal literature. Currently, nearly 10,000 journals are available from NIH desktops and through the HHS Digital Library. NIH or select groups within HHS may choose to acquire small, on-site print journal collections which DLS orders on their behalf. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS A.DLS is seeking a qualified subscription agent with the experience and human, technical, and financial resources necessary to support its acquisition of online and, to a more limited extent, print journal subscriptions. The offeror must have the appropriate combination of the following intellectual and technical capabilities: Core Capabilities: 1.Electronic Resources and Serials Subscription Management System (ERSSMS) a.This web-based system should contain metadata records for all biomedical journals and databases common to a large biomedical research organization. b.The web-based system should be available to customers 24/7 with at least a 99% average reliability. c.The offeror should have records for at least 85% of all titles listed in the RFP title list. d.A user-friendly dashboard with multiple account levels (and unlimited local accounts) should be available to support subscription management and collection development needs. e.This system must have complete metadata on all journals considered for acquisition (if a title is not in the agent's database, it must be added within 2 days). Complete data means: ▪title ▪publisher ▪ISSN ▪eISSN ▪country of publication ▪publication frequency ▪subscription period ▪subscription package membership (big deal bundles) ▪available formats (including mobile site/app) ▪volume ▪price ▪% increase in price from past year ▪invoice-item number/date ▪bill-to address ▪ship-to address for print ▪account number charged ▪customer subscriber number (assigned by publisher) ▪Restrictions or terms for institutional subscriptions clearly stated - e.g. online available only if purchased with print. ▪subscription status - e.g. irregular, discontinued, slow) f.Ability for customer to generate sortable, machine readable reports (Excel spreadsheets) using any of the above fields in any combination as needed. g.Ability to capture, store and display all bibliographic and financial transactions in the customer's account for the previous five years. h.Ability to export and/or synchronize this information using standard protocols into a commercial or open source electronic resources management system. i.Title information clearly and accurately indicates customer's order history. j.Ability to capture and report (as an Excel spreadsheet) all titles ordered by the customer in the previous year; this report also must identify which purchase mechanism (credit card, purchase order, check) agent used to acquire the title on behalf of the customer. k.Ability to clearly distinguish payment for a subscription placed by the offeror and one placed directly by the customer but paid by agent. l.Use of standard currency conversion rates when processing invoices in foreign currency. If rate used on invoice to customer differs markedly from rate found using a standard online converter, a clear explanation must be provided. m.Ability to interface with the customer's integrated library system using standard EDI transfer, or a future standard that may be developed and adopted. n.Ability to support transmission of purchase orders and invoices electronically. a.Anticipated period of performance. The period of performance is expected to be for one twelve Month base period and Four twelve Month Option periods. The contract is anticipated to be from 10/15/2014 - 10/14/19 Submission of Capability Statements and Delivery Instructions: In 15 pages or less any interested and business organizations should submit a capability statement of their organization which demonstrates their ability to supply the services described above and in the statement of work. Respondents should also include any other information that may be helpful to the program office in developing or finalizing the acquisition requirements. Responses must reference the sources sought number NIHOD2014019 include the following: (1) Name and Address of the Organization, (2) Size and type of business, pursuant to the applicable NAICS code 519190 (3) Point of contact with name, title, phone, fax and email, (4) DUNS number, (5) Contractors capability statement should address the deliverables and core capabilities in the statement of work, (6) List of organizations to whom similar types of services have been previously provided to include client and contract's dollar value. ALL INFORMATION SUBMITTED IN RESPONSE TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT MUST BE RECEIVED ON OR BEFORE THE CLOSING DATE. THE CLOSING DATE FOR RESPONSES IS DUE on May 29, 2014 @ 5:00 PM EST. Emailed capability statements are authorized (either in Microsoft Word or PDF), but it is up to the vendor to make certain that the email was received. All questions and/or comments must be emailed to Sharmaine Gerstel at gerstels@mail.nih.gov. Mailed documents can be sent to the address listed in FedBizOpps and listed below. Three (3) copies of the capability statement will be required if it is mailed. (a) When mailing your capabilities through the U.S. Postal Service use the following address: National Institutes of Health, Office of Logistics and Acquisition Operations, (OLAO), 6011 Executive Blvd., Room 625B, Bethesda, MD 20892. ATTN: Sharmaine Gerstel. (b) When hand delivering, or using a courier service such as: UPS, Federal Express, etc., use the following City, State, and Zip Code: Rockville, MD 20852. Responses by Facsimile (FAX) will not be accepted. Disclaimer and Important Notes. This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization's qualifications to perform the work. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation will be published in Federal Business Opportunities. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation. Confidentiality - No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s). SOURCES SOUGHT STATEMENT OF WORK Serials Subscriptions GENERAL REQUIREMENTS A.DLS is seeking a qualified subscription agent with the experience and human, technical, and financial resources necessary to support its acquisition of online and, to a more limited extent, print journal subscriptions. The offeror must have the appropriate combination of the following intellectual and technical capabilities: Core Capabilities: 2.Electronic Resources and Serials Subscription Management System (ERSSMS) a.This web-based system should contain metadata records for all biomedical journals and databases common to a large biomedical research organization. b.The web-based system should be available to customers 24/7 with at least a 99% average reliability. c.The offeror should have records for at least 85% of all titles listed in the RFP title list. d.A user-friendly dashboard with multiple account levels (and unlimited local accounts) should be available to support subscription management and collection development needs. e.This system must have complete metadata on all journals considered for acquisition (if a title is not in the agent's database, it must be added within 2 days). Complete data means: ▪title ▪publisher ▪ISSN ▪eISSN ▪country of publication ▪publication frequency ▪subscription period ▪subscription package membership (big deal bundles) ▪available formats (including mobile site/app) ▪volume ▪price ▪% increase in price from past year ▪invoice-item number/date ▪bill-to address ▪ship-to address for print ▪account number charged ▪customer subscriber number (assigned by publisher) ▪Restrictions or terms for institutional subscriptions clearly stated - e.g. online available only if purchased with print. ▪subscription status - e.g. irregular, discontinued, slow) f.Ability for customer to generate sortable, machine readable reports (Excel spreadsheets) using any of the above fields in any combination as needed. g.Ability to capture, store and display all bibliographic and financial transactions in the customer's account for the previous five years. h.Ability to export and/or synchronize this information using standard protocols into a commercial or open source electronic resources management system. i.Title information clearly and accurately indicates customer's order history. j.Ability to capture and report (as an Excel spreadsheet) all titles ordered by the customer in the previous year; this report also must identify which purchase mechanism (credit card, purchase order, check) agent used to acquire the title on behalf of the customer. k.Ability to clearly distinguish payment for a subscription placed by the offeror and one placed directly by the customer but paid by agent. l.Use of standard currency conversion rates when processing invoices in foreign currency. If rate used on invoice to customer differs markedly from rate found using a standard online converter, a clear explanation must be provided. m.Ability to interface with the customer's integrated library system using standard EDI transfer, or a future standard that may be developed and adopted. n.Ability to support transmission of purchase orders and invoices electronically. 3.Subscription Management Services a.Ability to accept and pay any information provider invoices within two weeks of receipt on behalf of customer, whether or not the resource is subscribed to through the agent; and invoice customer within one week of payment to publisher. b.Traditional subscription agent services including working with publishers to obtain current prices for a list of publications, obtaining proper invoices and paying those invoices after customer approval. c.Support for multiple subscription accounts within the web-based electronic resources and serials management system, including separate reporting, review and approvals for each account subscription list. d.Variety of alerts and email reports to notify customer of changes to subscription mix including, but not limited to, changes in format, publisher, price increases above a pre-defined threshold, or discontinued titles. e.Representative who has the authority to resolve problems arising in the DLS account. The representative or an alternate must be available Monday through Friday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm EST/EDT. S/he must be available for site visits, as well as by telephone or e-mail to resolve problems and provide updates. f.Technical support for access issues and questions related to ERSSMS. This should include a same-business-day acknowledgment and resolution to most problems within 48 hours. g.Ability to accept orders for new subscriptions at any time during the year. Publisher permitting, renewed subscriptions should be active on a calendar year (January through December) basis. Additional Capabilities Desired: 4.Collection Management Support Services a.Building upon the ERSSMS, provide resource management and collection evaluation services including: i.Compilation and normalization of usage statistics for at least 85% of subscriptions using both COUNTER/SUSHI and non-COUNTER usage data. ii.Merging usage data with multi-year pricing information to calculate cost per use for each subscription account and across all in a consortium view. iii.Multi-year (at least three) pricing trends report for all subscriptions iv.Identifying potential duplicate subscriptions across subscription accounts. v.Utilization of other measures to help show value of subscription to NIH (i.e. Impact Factor, AltMetrics, NIH publishing trends) vi.Ability to upload additional publication information, pricing and usage for titles not managed by offeror, as well as older pricing and usage data for titles managed by offeror. b.Working with publishers to activate online subscriptions, manage accurate customer IP ranges for each customer account, specific for each subscription. c.Access support services including creation of and/or integration with database-driven A-Z lists of all subscribed titles, open source ERM, ILS and link resolvers. Access support services should include ability to integrate title lists from subscriptions handled outside offerer's system. d.License support, including storage/retrieval of all applicable licenses related to subscriptions. In addition to images of complete licenses, a structured database containing key terms, provisions and metadata elements should also be included and populated. B.Further, the Contractor shall be responsible for the professional quality and technical accuracy, and for the coordination, of all facets of work covering subscription ordering, listings, computer processing and invoicing. The Contractor shall, without additional compensation, correct or revise any errors or deficiencies in workmanship or other services. 1.The Contractor shall notify the publisher within 10 working days when customer change of address occurs. 2.The Contractor, at no additional cost, shall place rush orders within 24 hours of receipt. If the publisher will not accept the order without prior payment, the Contractor shall send out such payment within that same 24 hour period. 3.The Contractor shall provide the following standard reports electronically by email: a.Subscription Comparison Price Index Report. On demand, the Contractor shall provide a price comparison index report (covering a three year period) in an Excel spreadsheet for all subscriptions. This report shall be sortable any field - e.g. title, publisher, etc. b.Regular Title Updates. The Contractor shall provide updates at least monthly on serial titles including data such as delayed issues, title changes, publisher changes, publication mergers, cessations, online availability status, and direct order requirements. 4.In addition to those computerization requirements specified elsewhere in this Statement of Work, the Contractor shall provide: a.Web-based access to its data and systems b.Ability for customer to generate claims online c.Ability for customer to export reports into Excel format d.Address fields of up to five lines; each line having up to 30 characters.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/HHS/NIH/OoA/NIHOD2014019/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, 20892, United States
- Zip Code: 20892
- Zip Code: 20892
- Record
- SN03351521-W 20140501/140429234719-78c38eb6a5d4bfa77dc9b1224d3426d7 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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