SOURCES SOUGHT
R -- United States and Foreign Periodical Subscription Services
- Notice Date
- 2/21/2012
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 424920
— Book, Periodical, and Newspaper Merchant Wholesalers
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine, 6707 Democracy Blvd., Suite 105, Bethesda, Maryland, 20894, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20894
- Solicitation Number
- NIHLM2012305-UHP
- Archive Date
- 3/16/2012
- Point of Contact
- Uyen H Phuong, Phone: 301-496-6127
- E-Mail Address
-
phuongu@mail.nih.gov
(phuongu@mail.nih.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- This Sources Sought Notice is for informational and planning purposes only and shall not be construed as a solicitation or as an obligation or commitment by the Government. This notice is intended strictly for Market Research. National Library of Medicine (NLM) is conducting a market survey to help determine the availability and technical capability of qualified small businesses, veteran-owned small businesses, service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses and/or HUBZone small businesses capable of serving the needs identified below. Purpose The purpose of this contract is to place new and renewal subscriptions for serials and periodicals published in the core regions of North America, Western Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand and, as an optional service, Japan. Orders may also be placed for selected titles from other countries, outside of the core regions, based on the capability of the vendor and the needs of NLM. Services will be obtained for managing serials and periodicals published in print and online formats. A consolidation service and shipping will be provided for print serials and periodicals. Services related to acquiring and managing access to online serials and periodicals will also be obtained. On an annual basis approximately 8500 subscriptions are renewed and 200-300 orders for new subscriptions are placed. It is anticipated that the period of performance will be for a period of 12-months with options for four (4) successive one-year periods. Vendor Requirements 1. Independently and not as an agent of the government, the Contractor shall furnish all necessary labor, materials, supplies, equipment and services, except as otherwise specified herein, to place new and renewal orders on NLM's behalf and to provide related services as set forth below for serials sold on subscription and produced in the following core regions: North America, Western Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, and, as an optional service, Japan. Orders may also be placed for selected titles from other countries. Before orders for titles published in countries outside of the core regions may be placed, the contractor and NLM must concur on the capability of the contractor to supply serials from those countries. Publishers may be commercial, governmental bodies and other non-commercial organizations. 2. The Contractor must be capable of providing a consolidation service for issues supplied for print publications. The Contractor must: a) Collect all issues of the publications at a central location; b) Record issues onto a packing list; c) Pack and ship the issues via airfreight; d) Provide access to an online system giving information as to issues received, processed and shipped. 3. The Contractor must supply a machine-readable equivalent of their paper invoices in EDI invoice message format that is certified by Ex Libris Group for use in the Voyager Integrated Library System. 4. The Contractor must have an online system, accessible via the Internet, that has, at a minimum, the following features: a) Content and display features: 1. bibliographic information for each serial including title, publisher, ISSN, frequency and available versions; 2. pricing models for available versions and/or packages; 3. order information for each subscription including title, publisher, ISSN, frequency, price and format(s) acquired; 4. invoice payment information for at least the current and previous year; 5. list of outstanding claims (by title) including current status and number of times claimed; 6. shipping information including list of issues supplied in current year's shipments and expected dates of future issues. b) Ability to search by: 1. title or series; 2. ISSN; 3. customer order or reference number; 4. vendor reference number. c) Output capabilities: 1. ability to produce EDI format invoices; 2. ability to produce all deliverable reports in electronic format; 5. All invoicing, shipments, reports and other communication produced by the contractor shall bear the NLM order cited on the original purchase order request, unless otherwise changed or modified. 6. The Contractor shall correctly maintain in its records information about negotiated prices for licensed online and print plus online subscriptions. The negotiated prices should be reflected in the Contractor's subscription database and should be correctly stated in billing. 7. Subscriptions for titles that are subscribed to only in online format must be managed by the Contractor in a separate account and invoiced separately from print and print plus online subscriptions. 8. All work under the contract shall be monitored by the, Contracting Officer's Representative (COR) whose position is defined elsewhere in this contract. Consolidation and Claiming Services for Print Subscriptions Consolidation Service The Contractor shall collect all issues of the publications at one or more centralized locations, record issues onto packing lists in alphabetical order, pack and ship the same via airfreight in accordance with approved schedule. The Contractor shall propose a shipment schedule whereby shipments are received at NLM at least three times per week and all issues are shipped within 5 working days of receipt at consolidation site. The weight limit for each shipment box is 50 lbs. The Contractor shall ship all issues to the address provided with the initiating order and continue such shipment until notified to cancel or change the shipping address. This is a Small Business Sources Sought Notice. This is not a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding: (1) the availability and capability of qualified small business sources; (2) whether they are small businesses; HUBZone small businesses; service-disable, veteran-owned small businesses; 8(a) small businesses; veteran-owned small businesses; woman-owned small businesses; or small disadvantaged businesses; and (3) their size classification relative to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for the proposed acquisition. Your responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible. This Sources Sought notice is not a Request for Proposals (RFP), nor is an RFP available. Interested firms responding to this sources sought notice must adhere to the following: (a) Provide a capability statement demonstrating relevant experience, skills and ability to fulfill the Government's requirements for the above. The capability statement should contain enough sufficient detail for the Government to make an informed decision regarding your capabilities; however, the statement should not exceed 10 pages. (b) The capability statement must identify the responder's small business type and size; DUNS number; NAICS code; and technical and administrative points of contact, including names, titles, addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and email addresses. (c) All capability statements must be submitted electronically no later than 4:30pm Eastern Standard time on Thursday March 1, 2012 to Ms. Uyen Phuong at phuongu@mail.nih.gov. 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 may 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).
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