Statement of Work.pdf

Statement of Work Library Information Services and Publications

The Nimitz Library of the United States Naval Academy

1. BACKGROUND

The United States Naval Academy (USNA) in Annapolis, MD was originally founded in October 1845 to educate the U.S. Navy’s officer corps. It graduates over 1,100 midshipmen annually with bachelor of science degrees and commissions as officers in the U.S. Navy or Marine Corps (predominantly). Graduates go on to serve at least five years in either of those (or other) military branches. USNA’s goal is to educate and prepare its students to become professional officers of competence, character, and compassion.

The Nimitz Library has been operational since 1973. The mission of the Nimitz Library is to provide information resources, research expertise, and rich learning environments to facilitate research, encourage critical thought, and inculcate a spirit of lifelong inquiry. This requires a wide variety of high-quality information services and publications as a base.

2. SCOPE

In order to meet the educational and research missions of the USNA, as well as accreditation requirements, The Nimitz Library requires electronic databases and serialized content. That is to say, the USNA requires scholarly and non-scholarly content from leading publishers. The purpose of this requirement is to provide ownership or access to said content via electronic databases and/or print and electronic serial subscriptions.

The Contractor(s) deliver(s) or provide(s) access to commercially-available, off-the-shelf, electronic and hardcopy/print information services, resources, and publications for the USNA.

Information products and services shall be available to all students, faculty, and staff enrolled or employed at USNA. USNA offers no remote/online/distance education options. However, remote access to USNA resources is granted via VPN, which is occasionally a privilege exercised by midshipmen, faculty, and staff due to military leave, academic breaks, summer training, etc.

Contracts may be divided into lots as follows:

Electronic databases of: aggregated information, e-books, articles, data, images, audio files, bibliographic records, and/or metadata

Electronic and physical journals, newspapers, and similar serialized content

NOTE: electronically-delivered training and online courses are not the focus of this solicitation and are out-of-scope for this contract. Only electronically-delivered training and online courses that supplement, support, and interact with the electronic products offered under these lots are allowed. Such an offering is limited and must be directly related to the products offered, e.g., an electronic database of self-paced tutorials on project management are out-of-scope. However, a database containing a library of scholarship on project management that is supplemented with a self-paced tutorial would not be out-of-scope.

3. REQUIREMENTS

3.1 Experience Requirement. The Contractor(s) shall have demonstrated experience providing electronic database and/or serialized content to both federal and academic libraries.

3.2 Product Requirements.

3.2.1 Electronic databases of aggregated information, e-books, articles, data sets, images, audio files, streaming video, bibliographic records, and/or metadata. Electronic database content is most often a collection of information resources created by a variety of individual content creators/publishers. This content then has been curated and aggregated by an information services provider or publisher to be commercially provided.

Subscriptions to electronic database content provide leased access to, rather than ownership of, subscribed content.

Contractor(s) provide(s) access to, search of, and retrieval from electronic databases hosted on a server managed by the Contractor(s) and must be available through the USNA’s search/discovery portal, currently Ex Libris’s Primo VE (powered by the Central Discovery Index). Access is controlled through Internet protocol (IP) address range authentication. In exceptionally rare instances, it may be acceptable for the Contractor(s) to provide access outside of Primo VE, without IP address range authentication, and/or solely via password access. USNA’s authorized users will be able to access, search, and retrieve desired content on-demand, view content on personal computing devices while using USNA IP ranges or VPN, and download and/or print content in a variety of formats.

Electronic database services will be priced by subscription (not to exceed one-year increments) or by one-time fee for perpetual ownership.

3.2.2 Electronic and physical journals, magazines, newspapers, and similar serialized content. Serialized content typically includes articles (scholarly and non-scholarly), illustrations, and similar content that appear in an issue of a journal, magazine, newspaper, or other periodical publication. Electronic versions of journals and magazines also frequently incorporate hyperlinks or multi-media elements. Serial content is provided on a subscription basis, typically for one year. The content arrives periodically throughout the year (publications vary with regard to timing) with the subscriber then owning that year’s issued content regardless of whether electronic or physical format.

Specific to electronic format serials: Contractor(s) provide(s) access to, search of, and retrieval from electronic serials hosted on a server managed by the Contractor(s) and must be available through the USNA’s search/discovery portal, currently Ex Libris’s Primo VE (powered by the Central Discovery Index). Access is controlled through Internet protocol (IP) address range authentication. In exceptionally rare instances, it may be acceptable for the Contractor(s) to provide access outside of Primo, without IP address range authentication, and/or solely via password access. USNA’s authorized users can access, search, and retrieve desired content on-demand, view content on personal computing devices while using USNA IP ranges or VPN, and download and/or print content in a variety of formats. Electronic format serials will be priced by subscription (not to exceed one-year increments). USNA will own in perpetuity subscribed content.

3.3 Support Requirements.

3.3.1 Subscription Invoicing. The Contractor(s) shall invoice for the entire subscription price when the order is placed or may invoice on a regular periodic basis. When subscriptions are pre-paid, they should earn significant discounts for the USNA. Because a customer may have a subscription that covers some usage (for certain users, certain files, etc.) but may pay transactional prices for other usage, it is very important that all usage associated with the subscription be charged to the subscription and reported against it. Subscription invoices will reflect the delivery order number and date. Double charging for usage by deducting from a subscription amount and charging transactional fees is prohibited. For subscriptions to electronic publications, the Contractor(s) shall provide the USNA with a way to determine how much usage there has been under the subscription, generally through Counter 5 compliance. This will allow the USNA to determine if the cost per use of the subscription is financially acceptable to continue the subscription.

3.3.2 Volume Discounts. Contractor(s) will indicate on quotes and invoices when the USNA, due to prepaid subscriptions, will receive volume discounts in U.S. Dollars.

3.3.3 Bundled Packages. Contractor(s)s that offer bundled packages shall provide the USNA with an itemized list of each component (title by title, database by database, etc.) and itemized pricing within the package. This information provides transparency and assists the USNA with price management, analysis, and comparison of products, and helps identify future purchases.

3.3.4 Subscription Cancellation and Refunds. When the USNA, in the interest of Government accountability, finds it necessary to cancel a subscription, a refund is due. The Contractor(s) shall refund the entire subscription price to a Customer who cancels a subscription before the print issues and/or electronic documents are received or information retrieval subscription is accessed. If the USNA cancels an annual information retrieval subscription after usage has begun, the Contractor(s) shall pro-rate the annual subscription price so that the customer only pays for the period of actual usage.

3.3.5 Undelivered or Unacceptable Materials. The Contractor(s) shall provide a way for the USNA to claim material that was not delivered or was not acceptable. This includes but is not limited to these examples: undelivered journal issues (print or electronic), databases that unsatisfactorily alter the content held/offered at or after the time of subscription, titles that transfer publishing houses mid subscription period, etc. All claim requests must be acted upon by the Contractor(s) within five (5) days of notification by the USNA. If claiming option is not possible, see 3.3.4 above.

3.3.6 Continuity. The Contractor(s) shall ensure subscription continuity through the entire period of performance. The Contractor(s) shall also provide clerical support and customer service for subscriptions up to ninety (90) days after the termination of a subscription.

3.3.7 Third-party Payment. The Contractor(s) shall pay third-party publishers/vendors for subscriptions on behalf of the USNA as needed. Should unforeseen contingencies, e.g., currency fluctuations, additional and unexpected volumes, and similar occur, the Contractor(s) for third-party publishers/vendors shall be solely responsible for said additional costs.

3.3.8 Direct Order Only. In cases where the Contractor(s) are engaged in third-party acquisition and a publisher/vendor informs the Contractor(s) that a journal or database is only available through a direct subscription, the Contractor(s) will inform the USNA no later than fifteen

(15) days after the Contractor(s) is/are informed of the requirement.

3.3.9 Electronic Ordering & Invoicing. Invoicing for payment will occur ONLY through the Department of Defenses Wide Area Workflow (WAWF) system. However, for USNA order transmission and record keeping, the Contractor(s) will provide EOD and/or EDI electronic forms of communication between systems. On rare occasions alternate FTP or email communications may be acceptable.

3.3.10 Records Retention. The Contractor(s) shall maintain complete records of all financial transactions for up to five (5) years and shall provide them upon request to the USNA within five (5) days of the request.

3.3.11 Point of Contact. The Contractor(s) shall assign one or more points of contact by name, providing a direct phone number and email address for each point of contact.

3.4 Licensing/Terms & Conditions Requirements.

Publishers/vendors frequently have license agreements or terms and conditions for their electronic publications and database products.

3.4.1 Signature Authority. The Contractor(s) will submit ALL licensing/terms & conditions requirements deemed necessary for signature as part of their response to the RFP.

Licenses and terms will be reviewed by Department of the Navy legal authority for appropriateness. Licenses and terms ruled acceptable will be included in the final awarding package for winning bidders. The Department of the Navy Contract Officer signature on the award WILL REPRESENT the USNA as signature authority for licenses and terms. The USNA CANNOT and WILL NOT provide any signature authority for licenses and terms.

3.4.2 Click Wrap Licenses. The terms established in the awarding of this contract take precedence over any conflicting license or terms and conditions including those found in publisher or third-party software click wrap license, whether presented in writing or electronically, and whether presented PRIOR to or SUBSEQUENT to executing this contract.

3.4.3 Open Access. The USNA supports open and public access to research. Thus, the

Contractor(s) will make the USNA aware of fully open access, hybrid open access, and article publication charges as options with regard to publishing models. Further, the contractor will make the USNA aware of licensing that provides opportunities to offset subscription fees through equitable economic models, as evidenced through journal subscriptions supporting gold open-access or institutional memberships.

3.4.4 Interlibrary Lending. The USNA supports the American Library Association’s

Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States (http://www.ala.org/rusa/guidelines/interlibrary).

Thus, the Contractor(s) shall NOT present licenses and/or terms and conditions for inclusion in this contract that ban or otherwise inhibit standard lending practices among libraries.