J_A_Sole-Source_Elsevier Bridge Award_6_16_2020 SAM POSTING.pdf

“Source Selection Information – see FAR 2.101 and 3.104”

1. Identification of the agency and contracting activity.

a. Federal agency and contracting activity.

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

b. Sponsoring organization.

National Institutes of Health National

Library of Medicine (NLM) Division of Library Operations (LO)

c. Project Officer Information.

• Project Officer Name. Cheryl Fields

• Mailing address.

Division of Library Operations

National Library of Medicine

8600 Rockville Pike, Building 38, RM 1N05C

Bethesda, MD 20894

• E-mail address. fieldsc@mail.nlm.nih.gov

• Telephone number. 301-480-1622

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

a. Acquisition purpose and objectives.

Pursuant to FAR 6.302-2, Unusual and Compelling Urgency, this requirement is to create a sole source bridge award of two months to procure access to the content on the Elsevier ScienceDirect platform, a large database of scientific and medical journals published by Elsevier B.V.

Justification and Approval for Sole Source (J&A) mailto:fieldsc@mail.nlm.nih.gov

b. Project background.

The National Library of Medicine, as a mandate in its authorizing legislation (Public Law 84-941), acquires and provides access to library materials pertinent to medicine. To support the Library’s mission, the Collection Development and Acquisitions Section in the Technical Services Division must procure uninterrupted access to journals published by Elsevier in accordance with their annual subscription agreement.

In the past, NLM issued a sole-source award to Elsevier for access to journals published by them. The purchase order (HHSN276201500559P) was issued January 1, 2015 with a five-year period of performance through December 31, 2019 for a total obligated amount of $3,396,389.00. In the final year of the contract, the Library converted to electronic access to the Elsevier ScienceDirect database. When the period of performance expired, NLM continued to utilize the service through May 31, 2020 in absence of a new agreement. The period of this unauthorized agreement is being processed through ratification procedures. To avoid a continued unauthorized action, and to provide continued access to essential scientific and medical information, this bridge award is being put in place to allow NLM authorization to the ScienceDirect platform for the NIH community, the general public, and use by other NLM contracts.

3. Description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs (including the estimated value).

a. Project title.

Subscription to Elsevier's ScienceDirect Platform for the National Library of Medicine

b. Project description.

Renew access to the Elsevier ScienceDirect platform for the period of May 01, 2020 – June 30, 2020.

c.

• Requirement type.

Research & development (R&D) R & D support services x Support services (non-R&D) Supplies/equipment Information technology (IT) Construction Architect-engineer (A & E) services Design-build Other (specify):

• Type of action.

New requirement Follow-on X Other (specify): Bridge Award. Previous PO:

75N97020P00125

• Proposed contract/order type.

x Firm-fixed-price Other fixed-price (specify, e.g., fixed-price award-fee, fixed-price incentive-fee):

Cost-plus-fixed-fee Other cost reimbursement (specify, e.g., cost-plus-award-fee, cost-plus-incentive-fee):

Time and materials Indefinite delivery (specify whether indefinite quantity, Definite quantity or requirements):

Other (specify):

Completion Form Term form

• Acquisition identification number.

Pre-Solicitation Number: 75N97020Q00023

d. Total estimated dollar value and performance/delivery period.

The estimated dollar value of this contract is $427,730.00. The period of performance for the base year is May 01, 2020 – June 30, 2020.

4. Identification of the statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition.

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of 41 United States Code (U.S.C.) 253(c) (1) as set forth in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.302-(2).

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of section 4202 of the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996.

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of the Services

Acquisition Reform Act of 2003 (41 U.S.C. 428a).

5. Demonstration that the proposed contractor(s) unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited.

a. Name and address of the proposed contractor(s).

Elsevier B.V., Radarweg 29, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, 1043 NX, Netherlands

b. Nature of the acquisition and proposed unique qualifications of the contractor(s).

The National Library of Medicine intends to award a sole source bridge contract to Elsevier, B.V. to prevent a disruption in services.

Elsevier B.V. is the world’s leading publisher of science and health information. Elsevier serves more than 30 million scientists, students, and health and information professionals worldwide and is the exclusive owner of ScienceDirect, an online portal providing electronic access to over 2500 peer reviewed articles and 39,000 e-books related to science and medicine. As an exclusive publisher, access to this essential material would not be available without subscription.

Due to the recent global pandemic, a large volume of scientific and medical data is being created and published related to SARS and COVID- 19; and because of social distancing, many libraries including the National Libraries such as the US National Library of Congress are closed to visitors making electronic resources the only means of obtaining vital information. It is therefore imperative that this bridge award be put in place to allow continued access to the NIH research community as well as the general public.

A lapse in service would create significant consequences for NIH and NLM as NLM would not be meeting its core mission to provide high-quality, relevant health and wellness information that is trusted, and the Medline database would not be maintained with the most updated information available to the millions of users who access it.

6. Description of the efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable. Indicate whether a FedBizOpps notice was or will be publicized as required by FAR Subpart 5.2 and, if not, which exception under FAR 5.202 applies.

A pre-solicitation notice was issued on Beta SAM on October 25, 2019 and closed on December 9, 2019. The pre-solicitation notice number is 75N97020R00001.

No responses were received from this notice.

Due to the JOFOC language revisions, a new pre-solicitation was issued on April 22, 2020 under notice number 75N97020Q00023 and closed on April 27, 2020. No responses were received.

7. Determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost/price to the

Government will be fair and reasonable.

A price analysis was conducted using Elsevier’s previous contract pricing.

Elsevier's price for this requirement for online access is consistent with contracts previously held with NLM in the past and the pricing appears consistent with industry standard based on catalog pricing. Additionally, the pricing obtained for this award is consistent with the previous contract’s pricing for the same and/or similar services. Therefore, their pricing is considered fair and reasonable in accordance with FAR15.404-1(b)(2)(ii).

The final option year pricing of the previous contract was inclusive of additional subscription titles. Additionally, NLM changed from hard copy titles to electronic titles due to technological enhancements. The pricing was adjusted to account for materially differing terms and conditions and market factors.

8. Description of the market research conducted (see FAR Part 10) and the results, or a statement of the reasons market research was not conducted.

NLM conducted online market research of Elsevier’s competitors on April 21, 2020. The following organizations were found; Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Springer Nature, Springer Nature, and Macmillan Publishers. Although these organizations were found to provide subscription services, none of them have the ScienceDirect content and information needed to satisfy this requirement.

It is known in the marketplace and to the program area that this information can only be acquired from Elsevier with access to their platform, ScienceDirect which is a proprietary database.

Based upon this market research, Elsevier is the only vendor to meet the Government’s needs.

9. Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition.

In addition to the current medical journals available only on the ScienceDirect platform, the National Library of Medicine will need access to information in future new journals published by Elsevier. This will only be available to the National Library of Medicine through its ongoing relationship with Elsevier.

In addition to fulfilling the NLM mandate to collect and provide unlimited, free access to materials related to medicine, access to the ScienceDirect platform is the only option for NLM to acquire online access to the Elsevier journals which are selected to be indexed (the NLM service which supports the biomedical research community by adding descriptive and subject metadata to facilitate searching and retrieval for the journal articles in MEDLINE). MEDLINE is the NLM premier bibliographic database containing references to journal articles and the primary component of PubMed, the databases provided by the NLM National Center for Biotechnology Information. Any disruption with the Elsevier ScienceDirect platform and the NLM services it supports would have major ramifications for the biomedical research community worldwide and currently, given the research being published related to the COVID-19 pandemic, this online access and the indexing of articles published in the Elsevier journals is urgent.

10.Listing of sources, if any, that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition.

No other sources expressed interest in the acquisition.

11. Statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the required supplies or services.

It is anticipated there will be an ongoing need for the information published by Elsevier, due to the National Library of Medicine's mandate to acquire the medical literature. This platform also provides content/information for indexing in MEDLINE. Thus, a requirement to procure Elsevier's ScienceDirect platform of medical journals is critical.

12. Program office certification.

This is to certify that the portions of this justification that have been developed by the undersigned program office personnel, including supporting information and/or data verifying the Government’s minimum needs, schedule requirements and other rationale for other than full and open competition, are accurate and complete.

13. Contracting Officer Certification.

This is to certify that the justification for the proposed acquisition has been reviewed and that to the best of my knowledge and belief the information and/or data provided to support the rationale and recommendation for approval is accurate and complete.