REQUEST FOR INFORMATION U.S. Department Of Commerce, National Technical Information Service located at 5285 Port Royal Road, Room 200F, Springfield, VA 22161. REQUEST FOR INFORMATION. POC Mr. Sandy Waters, Director Of Marketing Strategic Planning. The National Technical Information Service (NTIS), an agency of the Department of Commerce, Technology Administration, is surveying the availability of a broad range of information content that can be obtained direct from source providers including print and electronic publishers, analysts, news services, information collection and fulfillment services. NTIS is interested in obtaining information with appropriate copyright clearance for use solely within the government or by its contractors. NTIS has for more than fifty years fulfilled its mission of acquiring and disseminating technical, scientific and related information obtained from both government and private sector sources worldwide, in response to the needs of government agencies or its contractors. NTIS operates as a clearinghouse for the information it collects, delivering the majority of the dynamic content to users in electronic formats, and is able to support the needs of its users for the delivery of historic or current materials in print on demand paper, demand microform, CD-ROM on demand or through on-line electronic access. NTIS desires to identify the types of electronic formats and information contents, including but not limited to current and historic collections of publications, reports, analytical articles, gray literature, proceedings, published and unpublished analyses, images, topographical imagery or multimedia content including audio, video sources, and the depth (the level of detail, sources, associated references, or related information) of the information that is available, but not limited to, the following general categories. The content will be historical or current, provide technical or business related perspectives, by country, that are descriptive of; 1) Economy 2) Education 3) Geography 4) Government 5) Infrastructure (transportation, communications and media, electric power, technological development, manufacturing and energy resource capabilities) 6) International Relations 7) National Security, Military and Warfare 8) People and Society 9) Science and Technology 10) Transnational Issues (terrorism, illicit drug traffic, crime, financial, industrial, scientific or intellectual property espionage and corruption, intelligence and security) This announcement seeks to identify information and sources, is not limited to any specific need, or immediate opportunity, but is a statement of willingness to consider opportunities to enter into potential joint ventures or business arrangements with NTIS. Information about NTIS and joint ventures can be obtained from the www.ntis.gov or www.fedworld.gov web sites. Please describe the method of determining the price for the information. Information sources are asked to describe in detail and demonstrate their subject matter expertiseby providing a concise description of their access to, or the specific sources of their editorial talent. A brief descriptive synopsis is required for their company's history, capabilities, and a list of examples demonstrating the type of subject matter areas or market competence. Prospective information providers will also supply descriptions of their capacity to create, produce and supply documents via electronic means can meet varied NTIS format requirements. All information providers are expected to describe their capability to respond to any additional ad hoc inquiries in terms of, a) the response fulfillment time, b) their method of costing if beyond the scope of their routine pricing, c) the specific sources and resources under their direction or accessible for researching the requests, and d) to describe their capability to deliver the information in electronic document, or in multimedia formats via the Internet to NTIS. Please e-mail (no mailing of materials please) all responses and supporting descriptions to this request for information to: Mr. Sandy Waters, NTIS, swaters@ntis.fedworld.gov.

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0608 19970801\SP-0007.MSC)