National Library of Medicine, Office of Acquisitions Management, Building 38A, Room B1N17, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894

D -- COMPARE HAND SEARCHING WITH ELECTRONIC SEARCHING FOR US GENERAL MEDICAL JOURNALS SOL NLM SP 96-051/MDW DUE 080296 POC MoniQue D. Woodard, Contract Specialist, 301-496-6546. It is the intent of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to negotiate on a sole source basis pursuant to FAR 6.302-1 and 41 USC 252(c)(1) with The Baltimore Cochrane Center, 506 West Fayette Street, Baltimore, Maryland, 21202 to provide professional services for: a) conducting a study to compare hand searching with electronic searching for select United States general medical journals from beginning to end for RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL(s)(RCT) and CONTROLLED CLINICAL TRAIL(s) (CCT), b) evaluate the sensitivity of electronic searching, and c) produce an electronic re-tagging request file. The Baltimore Cochrane Center with others in the Cochrane Collaboration, has developed a three-stage strategy for searching MEDLINE, designed to be sensitive rather than precise in retrieving reports of RCTs. This strategy has been tested extensively and is being used to develop systematic registers of trails. The NLM requires a consistency of strategy in this project. All responsible sources may submit a proposal which will be considered by the National Library of Medicine. Telephone and fax requests will not be accepted. (0198)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0022 19960717\D-0005.SOL)