USAID, Office of Procurement M/OP/B/AEP, SA-14, Room 1539, Washington, D.C. 20523-1429

R -- INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT INFORMATION SERVICES CLEARINGHOUSE SOL OP/B/AEP-96-002 DUE 053096 POC Contact Point, Veronica G. Smith, 703/875-1026, Contracting Officer, Anne T. Quinlan. PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE NOTICE BEFORE REQUESTING THE RFP. This RFP is subject to the availability of FY96 funds. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Bureau for Policy and Program Coordination, Center for Development Information and Evaluation (PPC/CDIE), intends to issue an RFP for a ONE-year, Cost Plus Fixed Fee, (completion-type) contract with four (4), one-year options for operation of its Development Information Services Clearinghouse in the Washington, D.C. area. This will be a Small-Business Set-Aside Contract under SIC code 7379. The Clearinghouse provides access to a large body of worldwide, USAID-produced and USAID-funded, development literature and experiential information. This contract provides a variety of professional and technical services to obtain and select key Agency development experience materials, extract or format documented lessons learned and other experiential, technical and performance-based information, and create value-added, electronic and paper-based, information products which convey USAID's development knowledge to USAID staff and their development partners, and the U.S. public. The contractor must provide professional staff with international development knowledge in USAID's strategic program areas of democracy and governance, environment, population and health, economic growth, humanitarian assistance and human capacity development. This staff reviews USAID development materials to identify, summarize, catalog, index and communicate experiential information through a series of printed and electronic information and database products which are tailored for use by CDIE's priority audiences, i.e. USAID staff and their development partners. The selected Agency materials will be maintained in a series of databases which comprise the Development Information System (DIS), the Agency's institutional memory, and the Agency's Records Management System (ARMS). The contractor will acquire, store and manage selected documents and reports in electronic form, including scanning of paper copy reports into electronic image and text formats. (Some retrospective conversion of microfiche and paper copy materials to electronic format will be required.) The contractor will manage a 5,000-term development assistance vocabulary and use it to organize and index DIS and ARMS information and communications products. The contractor will provide on-demand, electronic and paper copy, reproduction and document delivery services of acquired USAID development experience and official development assistance activity materials. A variety of mechanisms, including internal Agency corporate intranet, as well as, external Internet World Wide Web and Gopher electronic publishing methods will be used to respond to requests and disseminate information. The contractor will use CD-ROM publishing as a communications and delivery approach for transferring (1) USAID development experience and (2) policy and implementation guidelines in the Agency's Automated Directives System, to remote USAID Mission and development partner operations which cannot be serviced through on-line access methods. The contractor will employ electronic and traditional paper-based methods for electronic distribution and bulk mailing of Agency materials. This contract shall also provide training and technical assistance to USAID missions and LDC counterparts in library, clearinghouse and information center operations, development experience management applications and associated technical support integration. Personnel must be experienced in all the above professional and technical areas and should be knowledgeable of USAID policies and procedures. Additional selected professional staff skills should include: AACR2 cataloging experience, lexicographical experience in the construction and maintenance of development-related thesauri such as the USAID Thesaurus, OECD Macrothesaurus and/or the UNESCO thesaurus, desktop publishing, electronic publishing of information products using HTML and SGML standard-supported software, electronic communication skills using Netscape software, database management skills using Basis Plus, Desktop and Web Browser software, and local area network (LAN) management of Novell and Banyan LANs. Scanning specialists and document request fulfillment staff should have experience in the use of specialized reproduction and scanning equipment, including fiche-to-paper reproduction equipment. Successful contractor must supply the following: office space in the Washington, D.C. area, office furniture and equipment, office and equipment supplies, training facility, computer and LAN equipment, document reproduction, scanning and electronic storage equipment, technical staff to maintain and operate all equipment, environmentally-controlled and secure vault for extant microform and publication negative storage, pull-pack, ship and loading dock space as well as 5,000 square feet of warehouse space, and be prepared to assume full operational capability within sixty (60) days of award. Management team must establish quality control, inventory control, statistical, financial management, operation management, database management and reporting systems to provide cost controls and performance results for USAID COTR. The preferred method of distribution of USAID procurement information is via the internet or by request of a solicitation on a 3.5'' disk (WordPerfect 5.1/5.2 format). This CBD notice can be viewed and downloaded using the Agency Gopher. The RFP, once issued, can be downloaded from the Agency Gopher. The Gopher address is GOPHER.INFO.USAID.GOV. Select USAID PROCUREMENT AND BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES from the Gopher menu. From there, choose the heading USAID PROCUREMENTS and then DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE USAID SOLICITATIONS. The RFP can also be downloaded via Anonymous File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The FTP address is FTP.INFO.USAID.GOV. Logon on using the user identification of ''anonymous'' and the password is your e-mail address. Look under the following directory for the RFP: pub/OP/RFP/AEP9602/aep9602.rfp. Receipt of this RFP through INTERNET must be confirmed by written notification to the contact person noted above. It is the responsibility of the recipient of this solicitation document to ensure that it has been received from INTERNET in its entirety and USAID bears no responsibility for data errors resulting from transmission or conversion process. Those interested in receiving this Request for Proposal, RFP, should send a letter referencing RFP number OP/B/AEP 96-002 and indicate whether a disk or paper copy is desired or if you are receiving the RFP via Internet. Telephone requests for the RFP will not be honored. ISSUE DATE WILL BE NO SOONER THAN FIFTEEN (15) DAYS AFTER PUBLICATION OF THIS SYNOPSIS. CLOSING DATE IS ANTICIPATED TO BE THIRTY (30) DAYS THEREAFTER. (0110)

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