National Library of Medicine, Office of Acquisitions Management, Building 38A, Room B1N17, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894

70 -- INSTALLATION AND MAINTENANCE OF RELAIS SYSTEM SOL NLM 96-202/MLM POC Lynn Montalvo, Contract Specialist/(301) 496-6546. It is the intent of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to negotiate on a sole source basis with Network Support Inc. (NSI), Ottawa, Canada, for the Relais System, an ''intelligent document delivery system'' which includes support services for customization, software development, training, and annual maintenance. NLM has a requirement to automate the processing and handling of over 300,000 interlibrary loan (ILL) requests that it receives annually from medical libraries in the U.S. and abroad. An automated system is required that can accept orders from multiple external sources in different formats including those sent by Ariel, a system designed to send and receive digitized images of documents. This system must identify the requestor, sort documents according to their library location, redirect orders to alternate holdings when items are unavailable, manage exception handling for problem orders, convert documents to the format the client requested (e.g. fax, digital, paper), transmit the document to the client, determine billing amounts and copyright or royalty charges, and it must know where the order is in the system at all times. It must be network-based and operate under the Novell LAN environment, run on an SQL compliant database such as Oracle or Sybase, and be MS Windows compliant. NLM requires that this system must operate with scanners capable of reproducing journal articles at the rate of 21 pages per minute. The Relais System, a proprietary product of NSI, meets the unique needs of NLM and other large libraries, including government libraries, providing document delivery on a grand scale. No other product on the market that has been developed for automating library services provides the capabilities of this system or is suitable for this environment. The Relais system combines many commercial products and provides customized equipment, such as the scanners, which are specially modified to handle a high volume of requests at a fast pace (21 pages per minute). Since NSI is the sole owner of the Relais System, NLM has determinted that NSI is the only source with the previous experience and expertise capable of providing the necessary system in the time frame that NLM requires. Negotiations with NSI is pending receipt of a Delegation of Procurement Authority. Authority 41 USC 253(c)(1) as set forth in FAR 6.302-1(b)(2). (See Numbered Note 22). (0033)

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