Attachment_Q_-_Frequently_Asked_Questions.pdf

Biomedical Journal Digitization Project Frequently Asked Questions

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 PWS, Part 5.2.4; Attachment 4, 2.4). A V-Cradle scanning device should be used for all content capture, except in cases where a flat glass device will not pose any risk of damage to the material.

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 majority of the journals are not sturdy enough for scanning on a robotic device. The use of robotic page-turning devices is not recommended and is unacceptable for any volume with fragile paper. 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. In the event that a volume is tightly bound with insufficient inner margin to capture the text, the Vendor should notify NLM for further guidance.

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 Digital Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials: Creation of Raster Image Files, available online:

http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/guidelines/FADGI%20Federal%20%20Agencies%20Digital%20Guidelines% 20Initiative-2016%20Final_rev1.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 82 journal titles, approximately 890,000 pages. Foldouts appear throughout these titles. NLM has not kept an exact count of the number of foldouts found.

If a foldout is larger than 24x38, NLM will scan it and FTP the images to the vendor.

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 82 journal titles, approximately 890,000 pages. Within this group the smallest journal is 6” (w) x 8.5” (h) and the largest is 8.5”(w) x 12” (h). There is one title consisting of 101 volumes that is 8” (w) x 12” (h) where the depth of the volumes varies from 1.5” to 4”. There is a title that has one oversize volume that is 10.75 “x 15”. It is possible that journal titles of other dimensions will be included in further stages of the project.

Question 7:

Attachment 9 – 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 PWS, Part 5.4 (2) and Attachment 4, 2.1.

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. (PWS, Part 5.2.3; Attachment 4, 1.7.5). 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 pilot 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 82 journal titles, approximately 890,000 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.

Question 14:

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?

A: 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 any assumptions how the pricing structure fits in with the proposed methodology. Pricing should reflect possible unknowns and difficult to work pages as mentioned in question 13 and also reflect the various possible page sizes.

The per page price per tier per year should incorporate all these things into one price to be used for all of these different page situations.

Question 15:

Attachment 4, 1.2.4 - PDF deliverables are to comply with the NLM-specified requirements for this project, addressed in Section 4.0, which are limited to requirements in the following clauses of the Government Product/Service Accessibility Template (GPAT)…” 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 Attachment 4, 1.2.4 for additional reference.

Question 16:

Reference: PWS, Part 5.2.4 p. 15 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 82 journal titles, approximately 890,000 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.

Question 17:

Reference: PWS, Part 5.5.1. 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 18:

Reference: PWS, Part 1.2 Background and Part 3.1.2 Government Furnished Property, Equipment, and Services

Comment: Part 1.2 states “The project will initially comprise approximately 250,000 pages, but may extend in phases to

1.8 million pages”. Part 3.1.2 states “The source material provided for scanning will be original hard-copy journals. Most of them will be bound with hard covers, though some of them may be single issues with soft covers.

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 82 journal titles, approximately 890,000 pages. Of that group, less than 5% are soft covers (unbound); 95% are bound. It is possible that this percentage will change with future phases of the project.

Question 19:

Reference: PWS, Part 1.2 Background Comment: PWS, Part 1.2 states “The project will initially comprise approximately 250,000 pages but may extend in phases to 1.8 million pages.”

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 82 journal titles, approximately 890,000 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 20:

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 82 journal titles, approximately 890,000 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 21:

Reference: GPAT, 1194.22a Comment: This requires a text equivalent for every non-text element in a converted document.

Question: 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 Attachment 4, 4.3.2: For each graphic image, OCR of caption. If no caption “Image: page pppp-a”

Question 22:

PWS, Part 5.5.6 -- The source material needs to be returned when the files are delivered. But as per PWS, Part 1.4.10 and Part 5.2.10, if any rework needs to be 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 (PWS, Part 1.4.10 and Part 5.2.10).

Question 23:

Attachment 4, 1.11-- What is the acceptance criteria for OCR Text file of the article.

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

Question 24:

Attachment 4, 8.0 -- 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 25:

Attachment 4, 2.8 OCR Specifications -- Is there software that is preferred for creating OCR text?

A: Abbyy Fine Reader.

Question 26:

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 27:

Attachment 4, 8.4.4 -- 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.

Issue dates will be taken from the customer-supplied packing list.

Question 28:

Attachment 4, 6.18.3 -- 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 Attachment 4, 6.18.2: Roman numerals in the source appear as corresponding Arabic numerals in this element.

Question 29:

Attachment 4, 1.4.7 -- An issue map file needs to be included in the deliverables, please provide the file naming convention for this.

A: This is described in Attachment 4 – 1.9.1

Question 30:

Attachment 4, 5.1 -- What validation procedures will the Government use to validate the XMLs?

A: XML will be validated against the DTD specified in Attachment 4, 5.1 and then will be run against the Schematron rule set.

Question 31:

Attachment 4, 4.1 -- What validation procedures will the Government use to validate 508 Compliance?

A: PDF 508 compliance will be checked manually using the guidelines described in Attachment 4, 4.6.

Question 32:

PWS, Part 1.6.13 -- Is any additional billing for accepted rework?

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

Question 33:

Technical Evaluation Criteria, 2 -- 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. 2, “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 34:

Technical Evaluation Criteria, 2 -- Will key personnel past performance be taken into account?

A: As stated in the TEC, Sect. 2, “The past performance shall demonstrate the contractor’s background and experience with projects of a similar size and similar technical requirements.”

Question 35:

PWS, Part 5.2.4 – 5.2.7 --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 Attachment 4, 1.4. In some cases, the vendor will need to generate alternative text for images in the PDF for Sect. 508 purposes. See accommodation section in Attachment 4, 4.6.

Question 36:

PWS, Part 5.5.1 -- 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 37:

PWS, Part 1.6.10 -- Should the Project Manager be certified?

A: PWS, Part 1.6.10 outlines the requirement for the project manager.