RFP_Amendment_1_NIHLM2015484.pdf

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (RFP): Amendment No. 01

RFQ NO.: NIHLM2015484

TITLE: Article Level Historical Journal Scanning & XML Preparation for PubMed Central

DATE RFP ISSUED: May 12, 2015

DATE AMENDMENT NO. 1 ISSUED: May 22, 2015

CONTACT PERSON: Maryann Carroll, Contract Specialist Office of Acquisitions National Library of Medicine 6707 Democracy Blvd., Suite 105 Bethesda, MD 20892-5488

PROPOSAL RECEIPT DATE: June 2, 2015, no later than 2:00 p.m., ET. via eCPS

To all Vendors: The purpose of this Amendment is to clarify the following:

Question 1:

Can the bound journals be captured using a 180° book cradle with glass?

A: NLM expects volumes to be scanned without “inflicting further damage on old, brittle volumes” (See SOW, B, 4; Appendix I, 4.2). The Vendor should have the experience and capability to make these decisions on a case-by-case basis and choose scanning equipment accordingly. In cases where brittle pages are likely to break along a gutter a V-Cradle scanner should be used, not a flat glass device.

Question 2:

Are any of the bound journals sturdy enough to scan on a camera system with a robotic arm and vacuum head page turner?

A: A minority may be. The Vendor should have the experience and capability to determine which items can be scanned using a robotic arm and vacuum head page turner before attempting to use such a device. A robotic device should not be used in any case where the result would be additional damage to the NLM material.

Question 3:

Is there sufficient inner margin of 1” between the gutter and the text block?

A: Inner margin widths vary throughout the source materials. As with question 1, the Vendor will need to choose appropriate scanning equipment (e.g. a V-cradle scanner) that is appropriate for any volume in which inner margin text comes close to the gutter.

National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Library of Medicine (NLM) Phone: 301‐496‐6546 Office of Acquisitions Fax: 301‐402‐0642 8600 Rockville Pike, Building 38A http://www.nih.gov Bethesda, MD 20894 http://www.nlm.nih.gov

Question 4:

By indicating high quality industry standard scanners should be used to scan the journals; are you requiring specific guidelines be followed for calibrating the scanners? If so, can you provide a link referencing those guidelines?

A: NLM recommends that Vendors follow Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials: Creation of Raster Image Master Files, available online:

http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/guidelines/FADGI_Still_Image-Tech_Guidelines_2010-08-24.pdf

Question 5:

Are there any foldouts in the collection that would extend beyond the page limits? If so, would you be able to provide an estimate of the number or frequency of foldouts per journal?

A: NLM has pulled the first round of journals for the project comprising 34 journal titles, approx. 500,000 pages.

Within this group approximately 9 titles have been detected as having foldouts – but this number may be low. Four of these titles have many foldouts throughout the journal, the others only a few. However, it is important to stress that these numbers are not exact as NLM has not kept an exact count of the number of foldouts found.

Question 6:

What size are the journals? If possible, would you be able to provide the page width and height in inches and smallest to largest?

A: NLM has pulled the first round of journals for the project comprising 34 journal titles, approx. 500,000 pages.

Within this group the smallest journal is 8”(w) x 5” (h) and the largest is 8.5”(w) x 12” (h). It is possible that journal titles of other dimensions will be included in further stages of the project.

Question 7:

Appendix IV – Journal Style Guide – is this an instruction sheet that will be provided with each journal by the customer?

Or, is this a sample document that is expected to be completed by the contractor?

A: The Journal Style Guides are instruction sheets prepared by the customer and provided for each journal – they detail title-specific requirements for each journal. See SOW, Sect. D (2) and Appendix I, 5.1.

Question 8:

The instructions indicate that the Library’s wants uncorrected OCR. However, the OCR accuracy rate that is required is listed as 99.995%. How would the Library like the contractor to reconcile potential errors?

A: The 99.995% accuracy for the OCR refers only to the OCR zoning, not the character accuracy.

Question 9:

How does the Library validate the accuracy of the PDF?

A: The Library will validate the accuracy of the PDF though manual visual checks to ensure the required components of the PDF are present and the PDF accurately reflects the source document.

Question 10:

Does the Library have a specific system for file management tracking they would like the vendor to use? If so, please identify what system.

A: The Library does not have a specific system for file management tracking they would like the vendor to use.

The Library would be interested in seeing proposals from vendors for solutions for the requirement for providing the customer with an inventory of received volumes, batch inventory, and production schedule information.

(SOW, B, 3; Appendix I, 2.2-2.3). It is possible that SharePoint, Excel, or Google Docs might be used.

Question 11:

The documents do not seem to contain any specification for putting together a technical proposal for the RFP, other than that form SF1449 is required and the GPAT document. Does the Library have any specific instructions of the technical response requirements? (i.e., page count limit, instructions for compiling?)

A: No, the Library does not have any specific instructions related to formatting of the technical response document.

Question 12:

What is NLM’s expected post-pilot, production timeline (e.g., 6 months, 12-months, etc.)? This is important for calculating equipment and staffing requirements as well as the associated pricing.

A: NLM intends to award a contract with a base year and four option years. The initial six month testing period will comprise the first half of the base year.

Questions 13:

Source conditions are important in determining scanning methods/treatment. Does NLM have an estimate of the percent of pages that are:

In thick bound volumes with significant curvature Damaged, brittle, or have bleed-through That cannot be scanned beneath glass (e.g. binding would tear, etc.)

Other conditions that require special handling

A: NLM has pulled the first round of journals for the project comprising 34 journal titles, approx. 500,000 pages. Within this group, the following conditions have been observed: loose and broken pages, text block detached from covers, torn pages, fold-outs, including broken fold-outs, brittle pages that may to break and reduced inner margins. It is not possible to create an exact percentage of the above conditions for each title.

However, out of the 34 journal titles selected for the first round of the project, at least 22 titles exhibit some of these conditions.

Question 14:

Does NLM have a rough estimate of the percent of articles that will be on the exclusion list?

A: NLM estimates the percent of articles that will be on the exclusion list to be less than 10%.

Question 15:

Pricing - SF1449 (2).pdf allows for a single price per page unit. Is this the sole way of submitting pricing or will optional pricing for additional services such as image correction or special color be acceptable? If so, are there any other price submission requirements?

The offeror must complete the SF 1449. If the offeror is proposing a unique methodology that requires a different pricing structure the offeror must be clear so that the government will understand without making an assumption how the pricing structure fits in with the proposed methodology.

Question 16:

Appendix I: 1.2.5 - “Compliance is addressed in Section 6.11 and is limited to the requirements outlined in the following clauses of the Government Product/Service Accessibility Template (GPAT) accompanying this project’s solicitation documents:” Please confirm if GPAT was included for reference, or if the GPAT document needs to be submitted for the elements referenced.

A: The GPAT document needs to be submitted for the elements referenced. See Appendix I, 1.2.5 for additional reference.

Question 17:

Appendix I - 6.7.1.3 - “Elements such as figure captions and pointers are included in the illustration image. These elements are converted as per the parent illustration format.” When used in other parts of the document, the term “pointers” appears to refer to links; can you please clarify its usage in this requirement.

A: There is a typo in Appendix. I – 6.7.1.3 and the phrase should have read: “Elements such as figure captions and labels are included in the illustration image. These elements are converted as per the parent illustration format.”

NLM will correct Appendix I.

Question 18:

Reference: SOW Section B Task Description Summary of Work, p. 3

Comment: The description of task number four states “The contractor will make every effort to produce journal page scans without inflicting further damage to old, brittle volumes and will communicate with the customer when and if the contractor believes it is impossible to scan a volume without damaging the volume.”

Question:

Will the Government please provide a good faith estimate of the percentage of the hard copy journals that are in a fragile state and/or poor condition so as to require scanning using a flatbed, book cradle or planetary scanner, or that are of historical value that does not permit them to be unbound for scanning?

A: NLM has pulled the first round of journals for the project comprising 34 journal titles, approx. 500,000 pages.

Within this group, the following conditions have been observed: loose and broken pages, text block detached from covers, torn pages, fold-outs, including broken fold-outs, brittle pages that may to break and reduced inner margins. It is not possible to create an exact percentage of the above conditions for each title. However, out of the 34 journal titles selected for the first round of the project, at least 22 titles exhibit some of these conditions.

Question 19:

Reference: SOW Section E. Logistics, p. 4

Comment: Item 1 in this section states “All work shall be performed on the contractor’s premises.”

Question: Will the Government please confirm that this requirement for “all work” to be performed on the contractor’s premises means that no NLM physical documents can be processed outside of the prime contractor’s facility in the United States?

A: NLM physical documents may only be processed at a contractor’s facility in the continental United States.

Question 20:

Reference: Appendix I Section 1.4 Source Material

Comment: Sub Section 1.4.1 states “The source material consists of paper journals, bound and unbound. The expected volume is between 777,000 to 1.5 million pages delivered in phases.”

Question: Will the Government please provide a good faith estimate of the percentage of the paper journals that will be bound or unbound?

A: NLM has pulled the first round of journals for the project comprising 34 journal titles, approx. 500,000 pages.

Of that group, less than 5% are unbound; 95% are bound. It is possible that this percentage will change with future phases of the project.

Question 21:

Reference: Appendixx I Section 1.4 Source Material

Comment: Sub Section 1.4.1 states “The source material consists of paper journals, bound and unbound. The expected volume is between 777,000 to 1.5 million pages delivered in phases.”

Question:

Will the Government please provide a good faith estimate of the average number of pages per hardcopy journal?

A: NLM has pulled the first round of journals for the project comprising 34 journal titles, approx. 500,000 pages.

Of that group, we estimate an average of 80 pages per issues. It is possible that this average will change with future phases of the project.

Question 22:

Will the Government please provide a good faith estimate as to the average number of pages per journal article?

A: NLM has pulled the first round of journals for the project comprising 34 journal titles, approx. 500,000 pages.

Of that group, we estimate an average number of pages per journal article to range from 10-20 pages. It is possible that this average will change with future phases of the project.

Question 23:

Reference: GPAT, 1194.22a

Comment: This requires a text equivalent for every non-text element in a converted document.

Questions:

If an image is accompanied by a caption, is the caption sufficient to satisfy the text-equivalent requirement, or must the image be described by an SME? If there is not a caption or descriptive text in the document, should the contractor develop a description?

A: The answer to both of these is in Appendix I, 6.11.1:

Figures: Alternate text for figures will be the figure label and caption from the un‐edited OCR. If no label or caption exists in the source, the alternate text will be “Image: page ” followed by the page number and sequential illustration identifier (‐a, ‐b, ‐c; etc.). We do not expect the contractor to develop any descriptions for non-text elements.

Question 24:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 1.8 ‐‐ The source material needs to be returned when the files are delivered. But as per section 9.0 if any rework needs performed, then source is required. Please advise.

A: When re‐work is required, the Library will ship the source back to the Vendor, at the vendor’s expense

(SOW, E, 2).

Question 25:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 3.2 ‐‐ What is the acceptance criteria for OCR Text file of the article.

A: The OCR text file must be present and zoned correctly.

Question 26:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 4.0 ‐‐ Can books be disbounded for doing scanning? If so, do we need to rebound the source while returning.

A: Source material may not be dis‐bound for scanning.

Question 27:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 4.0 ‐‐ What should be done with duplicate pages?

A: See Appendix. I, 1.5.4 – “The contractor will review each page of the source material and report any source discrepancies”…] . The Vendor is expected to examine the pages to make sure they are really duplicates and not misprints. It would be rare to have true duplicate pages in the source material

Question 28:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 5.4 ‐‐ Is there software that is preferred for creating OCR text?

A: No, there is no preference.

Question 29:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 1.3.2 ‐‐ If the pages have any library stamps / stickers should these be removed in the images when scanned?

A: No, they should not be removed.

Question 30:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 4.4.4 ‐‐ If the issue date is not printed / available, what treatment should be captured.

A: These cases will be addressed in the individual Journal Style Guides provided by the customer with each title.

Question 31:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 5.6.1.6 ‐‐ The SOW does not address the pages containing article and the advertisement content on a single page.

A: See Appendix. I, 5.2 et seq to see how pages containing multiple article types are to be handled.

Question 32:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 6.11.3 & 5.7.1 ‐‐ What is meant by Composite PDF? Please elaborate.

A: The PDF is expected to be a composite of the grayscale full page images, the OCR text, color images for figures or illustrations as present in the source, and contain the accessibility elements described in Appendix I, 6.11.1.

Question 33:

Append_I_‐_Image_Specs, 7.10.3 ‐‐ In the given example, the volume number is in Roman, however it was captured in Arabic. Are Roman numbers to be converted in to Arabic?

A: This is explained in Appendix I, 7.10.2:

Roman numerals in the source appear as corresponding Arabic numerals in this element.

Question 34:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 1.3.2 ‐‐ Is this color TIFF images is required only for color illustrations or all types color, grey and bi‐tonal illustrations also.

A: As further clarified in Appendix I, 6.1‐6.3, color TIFF images are expected for all full page images and all color figures and illustrations. All non‐color figures and illustrations are to be captured as 8‐bit grayscale TIFFs.

Question 35:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 1.3.10 ‐‐ An inventory file needs to be included in the deliverables, please provide the file naming convention for this.

A: NLM does not have a specific convention in mind. Something that is consistent and is indicative of the batch would work. It might be date‐specific and include the batch number.

Question 36:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 1.3.9 – Is it possible to obtain the format and file naming convention for this listing file.

A: As described in Appendix I, item 1.2.2, the exclusion list will be an XML file. The structure of the XML file is shown in Appendix. I, item 1.6. The naming convention will be journalabbrev.year.xml where the “journalabbrev” will be the customer‐provided abbreviation for the journal title and the year is the 4‐ digit publication year of the citations contained in the exclusion list. If a journal has few exclusions, the file may contain all of the exclusions in a single XML file and will be named journalabbrev.xml.

Question 37:

See an example , attached. It’s ijexpath.1990.xml.

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 1.3.7 ‐‐ Is it possible to provide format/sample of this place‐holder xml file.

A: The place holder XML file will contain the DOCTYPE declaration and the <article‐id> with the provided

PMID:

<!DOCTYPE article‐id PUBLIC "‐//NLM//DTD JATS (Z39.96) Journal Archiving and Interchange DTD v1.0 20120330//EN" "JATS‐archivearticle1.dtd"> <article‐id pub‐id‐type="pmid">2390402</article‐id>

See example, attached. XML file in SharePoint folder as exclusion_example.xml

Question 38:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 2.3 ‐‐ Is one batch can contain multiple titles or single title.

A: Batch is most likely to contain a single title, but may contain more than one. A batch is generally 3,000 pages.

Question 39:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 1.2.4 ‐‐ What validation procedures will the Government use to validate the XMLs?

A: XML will be validated against the DTD specified in Appendix I, 3.3.1.3 and then will be run against the Schematron rule set.

Question 40:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 1.2.5 ‐‐ What validation procedures will the Government use to validate 508 Compliance?

A: PDF 508 compliance will be checked manually using the guidelines described in Appendix I, 6.11.1.3.

Question 41:

Appendix_I_‐_Image_Specs, 9.0 ‐‐ Is any additional billing for accepted rework?

A: Once beyond 6‐month testing period, rework necessary due to contractor error will be performed free of charge by vendor.

Question 42:

Tech_Eval_Criteria, 3 ‐‐ How are you basing the past performance, on the scanning effort, the XML conversion or both? Will one take more precedence than the other?

A: As stated in the TEC, Sect. 3, “The past performance shall demonstrate the contractor’s background and experience with projects of a similar size and similar technical requirements.” Referring to TEC Sect.

1, Understanding the Requirement and Technical Approach – the vendor can see that technical Approach includes all aspects of the project – including scanning and creating derivative files and XML documents.

Question 43:

Tech_Eval_Criteria, 3 ‐‐ Will key personnel past performance be taken into account?

A: As stated in the TEC, Sect. 3, “The past performance shall demonstrate the contractor’s background and experience with projects of a similar size and similar technical requirements.”

Question 44:

SOW, B.4 ‐ B.7 ‐‐For clarification purposes, the deliverables are to be in TIFF, PDF and ASCII text file containing just the text that was obtained when the journals were scanned.

A: Deliverables are outlined in Appendix. I, 1.3. In some cases, the vendor will need to generate alternative text for images in the PDF for Sect. 508 purposes. See accommodation section in Appendix I.

6.11.1.2.

Question 45:

SOW, E.1 ‐‐ Is there a location limit on where the work has to be performed?

A: NLM physical documents may only be processed at a contractor’s facility in the continental United States.

Question 46:

SOW, E.3 ‐‐ How many pickup will be required?

A: NLM has not determined how many pickups will be required.

Question 47:

SOW, H.2, E.2(2) ‐‐ Is it the intent of the government to only provide a limited amount of work at a time?

A: Not necessarily. It may be possible for a majority of the first round journals to be shipped to the contractor at one time.

Question 48:

SOW, I ‐‐ Should the Project Manager be certified?

A: SOW Sect. I outlines the requirement for the project manager.

Question 49:

Noticed that there was not a CLIN structure for pricing. How is pricing to be provided? One FFP for the entire effort? Per volume/document imaged and converted?

A: This is laid out in the Attachment – SF1449. Contractor must complete SF1449 as detailed in the body of the solicitation.