TEL General Encyclopedia Access - UPDATED

The State of Tennessee, Office of the Secretary of State, Tennessee State Library and Archives, is issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP) to procure online encyclopedia access for the Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL) to serve the state's population of 7.2 million users across multiple demographics. The services must include comprehensive, reliable encyclopedic resources designed to support adults, K-12 students (spanning grades PreK-5, 6-8, and 9-12), English Language Learners, academic institution students and faculty, and public library patrons throughout Tennessee. The contractor must provide 24/7 accessibility through both IP authentication and login processes, supporting unlimited simultaneous remote and on-site access, and must maintain current insurance, appropriate business and professional licenses, and Tennessee Department of Revenue registration for sales and use tax collection. The evaluation criteria are weighted as follows: general qualifications (10 points), technical qualifications and approach (45 points), oral presentation (15 points), and cost proposal (30 points), for a total of 100 possible points. Key deadlines include May 27, 2026, for written questions and comments, June 15, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. central time for proposal submission, mandatory oral presentations scheduled for June 22-24, 2026, and a notice of intent to award on July 16, 2026. The contract period runs from September 1, 2026, through August 31, 2031 (five years), and pricing must be submitted as a quarterly flat fee covering all proposed services across the full contract term.

The RFP does not identify any set-aside designations or restrictions limiting the types of organizations eligible to respond. Respondents must comply with all applicable federal and state laws, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and Tennessee's K-12 age-appropriate materials and student privacy laws. Sealed technical and cost proposals must be submitted separately, with technical responses containing no pricing information and cost proposals formatted exactly as specified in the RFP attachment. Trial access to the proposed resource must be provided simultaneously to evaluators from the proposal deadline through completion of technical evaluation. No specific incumbent vendors or award value ranges are listed in the available documentation, and the State reserves the right to reject all responses or cancel the procurement at its discretion, with no obligation to any specific dollar amounts or minimum purchase quantities.