U.S. Information Agency, Office of Contracts, 301 4TH STREET SW, Room M27, Washington, DC 20547

R -- DATABASE ADMINISTRATION AND SOFTWARE SUPPORT-PDQ ELECTRONIC ARCHIVE DUE 052298 POC Jeannette Kidd, technical Information specialist, (202) 619-4926; Fax.: (202) 619-4028 To support the U.S. Information Agency's electronic archive, known as Public Diplomacy Query (PDQ), this solicitation will be used to contract for a database administrator, as well as for separate vendors providing other specialized programming and computer software services. The contract period runs from June 15 to September 30, 1998. The PDQ database, operated by the Electronic Media Team of the U.S. Information Agency, consists of five Web- and CD-ROM-accessible libraries used by more than 120 overseas posts as well as USIA offices in Washington. PDQ uses Excalibur's Retrievalware software as its search engine. Database and software reside on a Pentium computer running NT 4.0 and using a Microsoft SQL server. The system allows for open access and password protection, and transmits data over public phone lines and Internet connections. Prime responsibility of the PDQ database administrator will be to monitor and maintain the PDQ archive, ensuring the integrity and accessibility of the data. Among themanagement and technical responsibilities of the database administrator: 1. Keep the database operational, with minimal downtime and rapid recovery. 2. Recover all data in the event of a software crash or hardware failure. 3. Ensure optimal performance, response time, file transfer, indexing and other functions. 4. Identify and fix Retrievalware-related problems on the server. 5. Develop and implement a systematic back-up plan. 6. Assign rights and privileges to users; identify, add or delete users. 7. Ensure appropriate security. 8. Develop special scripts and other subroutines to enhance performance and add search or archiving features. 9. Troubleshoot to identify and fix errors. 10. Produce bimonthly CD-ROM using Retrievalware. 11. Provide training to the USIA PDQ Administrator and other PDQ users. USIA may contract separately with other vendors to provide specialized support and ancillary services for PDQ, some of which may also fall into the purview of the database administrator. These services might include: 1. Develop special scripts or programming to produce the bimonthly CD-ROM. 2. Write programs, scripts or subroutines to optimize Retrievalware's performance. 3. Improve the Internet/HTML interface and document display, or provide additional features such as user profiling. Proposal due date is June 1, 1998. To get a complete synopsis of duties ans requirements, send an e-mail to PDQ@USIA.GOV. Completed proposals and requests for further information should be directed to: Jeannette Kidd PDQ Administrator U.S. Information Agency Electronic Media -- I/TEM 301 4th Street S.W. Washington, D.C. 20547, (202) 619-4926 E-Mail: jkidd@usia.gov (0127)

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