Foreign Online Indexing Support Services

It is the intent of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), to negotiate on a sole source with Karolinska Institute, Solnavagen 1, Solna, 17165, Sweden, to provide foreign online indexing support services to the overall mission of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), especially the mission of the Bibliographic Services Division (BSD).
The National Library of Medicine is responsible for indexing life science journals for MEDLINE. Indexing policies and procedures used at NLM are in the NLM Indexing Manual, supplemented by technical memoranda and other indexing aids. The purpose and objective of this procurement is to provide a continuing stream of indexed foreign articles from biomedical journals for inclusion in MEDLINE.

Contractor will index life science journal articles by applying Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) describing the content of each article, following procedures and policies contained in established NLM guidelines, including the NLM indexing Manual, MeSH annotations, and other NLM generated indexing aids such as Technical Memoranda, email, and online resources. Indexers will use the NLM web-based online indexing system to add subject headings to the online record for each article. Indexers will access the online record for each article and review the descriptive data provided for each one (pagination, language, authors, author affiliation and title). The major effort involves the intellectual analysis of the article for subject content and the application of appropriate subject headings, publication types and qualifiers drawn from MeSH. The online indexing system contains many validation programs to detect real or potential errors. Indexers will respond to "Error" or "Warning" messages generated by the system.
NLM will provide access to the Indexing Manual, MeSH and standard NLM-generated indexing aids. NLM will supply URL and necessary passwords needed to access web-based journals. NLM will provide access to the online indexing system, seven days a week and almost 24 hours per day. Occasionally weekend availability will be interrupted for scheduled maintenance to the NLM computer system. The indexing center will subscribe to an agreed-upon list of journals published in the country or in the language(s) agreed upon. The contractor is required to submit to NLM Project Officer a copy of all invoices and a list of work accomplished.
The Karolinska Institute has provided support to the NLM BSD indexing of foreign articles from biomedical journals for inclusion in MEDLINE to NLM and possesses staff who have been fully trained to perform MEDLINE indexing. Using their own computer equipment and telecommunications system, the Karolinska Institute trained staff will analyze journal articles for subject content and apply appropriate subject headings drawn from NLM's controlled thesaurus, MeSH, using the NLM's Web-based indexing system (to which NLM will provide access). The Karolinska Institute staff members are trained in NLM MEDLINE indexing policy and have unique language and subject skills to have performed many years of satisfactory indexing performance. Use of this source eliminates the need to train new indexers. Indexing will be performed following the policies and rules specified in NLM's MEDLINE Indexing Manual and technical memoranda. The journal articles are highly technical in nature, and require subject knowledge of the biomedical sciences in order to perform adequate subject analysis and indexing.
The National Library of Medicine has identified Karolinska Institute as the only Institute qualified to provide the requirements of this project. This is a continuing partnership and effort between NLM and the Karolinska Institute. The Institute's unique position of experience, journal access, language skills, and the experience of NLM with the indexing community through similar international agreements.
Responses to this posting must be submitted via NLM's Electronic Contract Proposal Submission (eCPS) system at https://ecps.nih.gov, no later than 4:30 p.m., (Eastern-Daylight Savings Time), Friday, March 22, 2019.
NOTE: For directions on using eCPS, go to https://ecps.nih.gov and click on "How to Submit." To submit your electronic proposal using eCPS, all offerors must have a valid NIH External Directory Account, which provides authentication and serves as a vehicle for secure transmission of documents and communication with the NLM. The NIH External Directory Account registration process may take up to 24 hours to become active. Submission of proposals by facsimile or e-mail is not accepted.
All proposals received within fifteen (15) days from the date of publication of this synopsis will be considered by NLM. NLM Synopsis No. 75N97019Q00028. EMAILS AND FACSIMILES WILL NOT BE ACCEPTABLE. Firms interested in responding to this notice must be able to provide the products and services required by NLM. The offeror shall include all information necessary to document and/or supports the qualification criteria in one clearly marked section of its proposal. All responses from responsible sources will be considered. Inquiries regarding this procurement may be made to the National Library of Medicine, Office of Acquisitions, 6707 Democracy Boulevard, Suite 105, MSC 5488, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, Attention: Uyen H. Phuong, Contracting Officer, on (301) 496-6546. Vendor shall comply with all applicable Federal, State and Local laws, executive orders, rules and regulations applicable to its performance under this order. Full text of clauses and provisions are available at Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR): http://farsite.hill.af.mil. The following clauses and provisions shall apply to this acquisition and maybe obtained from the web site: FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors-Commercial Items (Oct 2018). FAR 52.212-2, Evaluation-Commercial Items (Oct 2014). Offerors are advised to provide with their offer a completed copy of the following provisions: FAR 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items (Oct 2018)-With Unique Entity Identifier [52.204-6 (Oct 2016)]. The following FAR clauses apply to this acquisition: FAR 52.212-4, Contract Terms and Conditions-Commercial Items (Oct 2018) - With Addenda [Stop-Work Order, FAR 52.242-15 (August 1989)]; FAR 52.212- 5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders-Commercial Items (Jan 2019).

.