Perpetual Electronic Rights to Royal Society of Chemistry Journals

THIS NOTICE OF INTENT IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS. This notice is for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government. This procurement will be processed pursuant to FAR part 12, Acquisition of Commercial Items and FAR part 13.5, Simplified Acquisition Procedures for Certain Commercial Items. No solicitation will be issued.

All responsible sources who believe they can provide the services listed may submit, in writing to the identified point of contact, a capability statement, proposal, or quotation, which shall be considered by the agency. Information received will be considered solely for the purposes of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. Oral communications are not acceptable in response to this notice. A determination by the Government to compete this proposed contract based on responses to this notice is solely at the discretion of the Government. Responses are to be received within 5 days of this notice. No telephone calls are being accepted.

The United States Department Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), National Agricultural Library (NAL) intends to negotiate and award on a Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition (JOFOC) basis. Contract type will be a Firm Fixed Price with a base year and three (3) one year option periods. This will be awarded to Royal Society of Chemistry. This is for electronic access via the internet to specified journals of Royal Society of Chemistry for use by all USDA employees. NAICS Code is 511120. Annual period of performance is estimated to be September 30 - September 29 through year 2022.

Award is in accordance with 41 U.S.C 3304(a)(1), and FAR 13.106-1(b) and 13.501(a).
________________________________________________________________________
The National Agricultural Library (NAL) is mandated (7 U.S.C. 3101) to serve as the primary agricultural information resource of the United States. One of its functions in that role is the acquisition of information in all aspects of agriculture and allied sciences. In support of this function, the NAL acquires journal publications in electronic format from publishers and makes the journals accessible to USDA employees and library patrons via the internet. In keeping with its charge to collect agricultural and related information, it seeks to maintain a collection of publications in various formats from a variety of publishers and sources.

The Royal Society of Chemistry is the only source for the specific mix of journal titles needed by the National Agricultural Library (NAL). NAL has a need for current access to specific journal titles and the only source for these "ala carte" selections is directly through the Royal Society of Chemistry.

In order to get 100% of the content of every issue of a journal, with perpetual access rights, as soon as the article is published we need to contract directly with the publisher, who has all of those rights (and obligations.) And the library needs those rights in order to have an electronic journal serve the same purpose and fill the same needs as the print journals we used to subscribe to for the library collection. NAL does not need any administrative support to purchase these journals and only needs direct purchase of the perpetual rights to the journals.

NAL requires the most current and up-to-date journals to be able to provide access to all USDA scientists which in turn allows the scientists to meet the agency's mission. It's critical to the agency mission that NAL have 100% of the content of every issue of a journal, with perpetual access rights, as soon as the article is published.

.