sources-sought-notice.pdf

Springer Journals

Sources Sought Notice Sources Sought Number # 75N98020Q00031

Contracting Office Address

Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, Office of Acquisitions, OLAO, OA, 6011 Executive Blvd., Room 539-C, Rockville, MD, 20852.

Introduction

This is a notice issued on behalf of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Division of Library Services, Office of Research Services by the Office of Logistics and Acquisition Operations (OLAO), Office of Acquisitions, NIH, DHHS, UNITED STATES.

This is a Small and Large 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-disabled, 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. All organization including those considered a small business under NAICS code 519130 with a size standard in number of employees of 1000 should submit a response to this notice.

Background

The National Institutes of Health, Office of Acquisitions, OLAO, OA is seeking businesses with the ability to provide electronic access to a wide range of journals, books, and databases from Springer Nature (publisher) to meet the information needs of NIH and other HHS researchers and clinicians for their conduct of research and treatment of patients.

Project Requirements

See attached Statement of Work, SOW.

Capability Statement

Small and Other than Small business concerns that believe they possess the capabilities necessary to undertake this work should submit complete documentation of their capabilities to the Contracting Officer. The capabilities statement must specifically address each project requirement separately.

Interested small business and other than small business concerns are required to identify their size standards in accordance with the Small Business Administration. The government requests that no proprietary or confidential business data be submitted in a response to this notice. However, responses that indicate the information therein is proprietary will be properly safeguarded for Government use only. Capability statements must include the name and telephone numbers of a point of contact having authority and knowledge to discuss responses with Government representatives.

Capability statements in response to this market survey that do not provide sufficient information for evaluation will be considered non-responsive. When submitting this information, please reference the solicitation notice number.

Point of Contact:

Terita Stevenson, Contracting Officer, Office of Acquisition, OA Office of Logistics and Acquisition Operations, OLAO, Station Support, Blue Team, Phone

(301) 402-3727.

Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, Office of the Director, 6011 Executive Blvd., Room 539-C, Rockville, MD, Office of Acquisitions, 20852, UNITED STATES

Submission Instructions:

All interested business concerns are invited to submit a tailored capability statement. The capability statement must reference the Sources Sought Number 75N98020Q00031 and include the following:

(1) Name and Address of the vendor,

(2) Size and type of business

(3) Point of contact with name, title, phone, fax and email,

(4) DUNS number,

(5) Vendor's capability statement (no more than 15 pages) addressing the draft Statement of Work,

(6) List of organizations (no more than 3) to whom the same or similar types of services have been previously provided to include contract/order number, short description, dollar value, name, and the phone number/email address of the Contracting Officer/Buyer and Customer.

and 7) any other information considered relevant to this program. The capability statement must not exceed 15 single sided or 7.5 double sided pages in length and using a 12-point font size minimum.

ALL INFORMATION SUBMITTED IN RESPONSE TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT MUST BE

RECEIVED ON OR BEFORE THE CLOSING DATE OF July 31, 2020 at 2 PM EST.

Please submit Capability Statements through email (stevenst@od.nih.gov) All questions and/or comments must be in writing and emailed to Terita Stevenson, Contracting Officer at stevenst@od.nih.gov by July 22, 2020 at 2PM EST. Comments and questions will NOT be answered but will assist in creating a solicitation for this requirement.

All responses must be received by the specified due date and time in order to be considered.

This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in the response. No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your 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 review of the responses received, pre-solicitation and solicitation notices may be published in Federal Business Opportunities. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation.

mailto:stevenst@od.nih.gov

STATEMENT OF WORK

PROJECT TITLE: Access to Springer Nature Online Resources I. Statement of Work

A. Background Information

Springer Nature Group provides access to online resources for NIH staff and HHS agency staff served by the NIH Library (DLS), including over 1,900 journals in a wide range of scientific, technical and medical subjects; over 50,000 eBooks;

and databases such as Springer Protocols. Links from PubMed, Web of Science®, and the NIH Library website allow NIH staff to connect directly to the articles on the Springer Nature website following a search of the various sites.

Springer Nature online resources allow DLS to provide enhanced and timely access to information NIH staff need to perform their work whether they are intramural researchers or extramural program administrators. Feedback from NIH and HHS researchers, clinicians and administrators indicates that the easy accessibility of needed information made possible by providing electronic access to Springer Nature resources has increased their productive work time, because of the time saved identifying and retrieving relevant articles.

B. Objectives

The specific objective of this requirement requires the contractor to provide the NIH and the HHS agency staff served by the NIH Library (DLS) access to the electronic version of select Springer Nature journals, books, and databases through its web interface. Access will be cumulative for articles published in the journals since 1997 (for Springer journal titles) or 2007 (for Nature journal titles) or the first year a journal was offered on the Springer Nature platform. The contractor is also required to provide access to other databases and journals as outlined under the “specific requirements” section of this SOW.

II. Services to be performed

A. General Requirements

1. Independently and not as an agent of the Government, the Contractor shall furnish all the necessary services, qualified personnel, materials, equipment and facilities needed to perform the Statement of Work below.

2. All work under this contract shall be monitored by the Contracting Officer Representative (COR).

B. Specific Requirements Specifically, the contractor shall:

1. Provide the NIH and the HHS agency staff served by the NIH Library

(DLS) access to the electronic version of select Springer Nature journals, purchased Springer eBook collections, and subscribed databases such as

Springer Protocols through its web interface. Access will be cumulative for articles published in the journals since 1997 (for Springer journal titles) or 2007 (for Nature journal titles) or the first year a journal was offered on the Springer Nature platform, based upon previous investments.

2. The contractor also shall provide options for acquiring eBooks, online reference works, backfiles of selected journals, databases, and Content on Demand (COD) tokens. Options should factor in all previous investments in print and digital subscriptions, as well as previous archive backfile purchases.

3. The contractor may also provide options to include all Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies with access to the same resources as identified in this contract. The contractor may also provide options for including existing subscriptions from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) into this agreement.

4. The contractor shall provide an option for DLS to add new titles as the contractor adds to its holdings through acquisition or publication of a new title. The contractor also shall provide an option for DLS to cancel selected journal titles should its funding be reduced.

5. DLS may fulfill interlibrary loan requests in accord with Section 108 of the United States Copyright Law (17 USC Sec. 108, “Limitations on exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and archives”) and clause 3 of the Guidelines for the Proviso of Subsection 108(g)(2) prepared by the National Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works.

6. DLS shall retain perpetual access to all subscribed years of resources.

7. The contractor shall agree to the incorporation of all license agreements into the contract.

C. Government Responsibilities

1. The Government will be responsible for providing an interface via web links for the NIH community to access the Springer website.

2. NIH will be responsible for creating a system to validate security for entrance into the website.

3. Upon signature by the Government, the contractor license agreement will be incorporated into the contract.

D. Reporting Requirements and Deliverables

1. The contractor shall regularly provide the Project Officer with monthly usage statistics for individual journal titles as well as aggregated use data for journals and databases, complying with industry standards such as COUNTER and SUSHI.

2. The contractor shall provide use by selected NIH institutes when that use is identifiable, e.g. from IP range or log in, as requested.