SWAN Board:

On Friday the ILS Committee completed its scoring of the criteria for the ILS proposals. We focused solely on VTLS and SirsiDynix proposals. The Equinox proposal was eliminated at the prior meeting.

The completed scoring favored SirsiDynix as the preferred vendor so I am moving ahead with arranging a preliminary contract with SirsiDynix. We will go over more of the specifics of the contract and ILS recommendation at our SWAN Board meeting on Thursday February 6th.  This news should be kept confidential among us until I have the go ahead to announce something formally.

Here is what you all need to know at this stage:

• I have contacted SirsiDynix, Equinox and VTLS to inform them of the outcome.
• I have requested a contract from SirsiDynix with Brad Whittle, Vice President of Global Sales, which I will review with the SWAN Negotiation Team, which is Melissa Gardner, Jeannie Dilger, and myself.
• The ILS Committee will be on-site at the SWAN Board meeting February 6^th to review its recommendation. A portion of this recommendation will be held in closed-session as it involves reviewing contract terms, costs, etc.
• On February 10^th & 11^th there will be on-site negotiations of the contract with SirsiDynix and the Negotiation Team
• The SWAN Board will meet at as scheduled on Friday February 21 to review the contract
• March 6^th is the SWAN Quarterly meeting, which is where the negotiated contract will be reviewed and approval for funds will take place

I would characterize the situation as “tentative” but only because there are a lot of steps to complete. However, I am excited that we have reached this milestone after 15 months. I believe what SirsiDynix has proposed is going to make our libraries very happy.

Thanks again to Rich Wolff and Melissa Gardner who sat through the entire meeting day of the ILS Committee on Friday. I think both of them saw how objective the group needed to be in order to arrive at the best choice for SWAN. I believe what they learned was that SWAN had two viable choices for its next ILS. So if things for some unforeseen reason break down with SirsiDynix, we will have VTLS as an immediate option.

Again, this news should be kept confidential among us until I have the go ahead to announce something formally.

Kind regards,

Aaron

Aaron Skog
SWAN Executive Director
125 Tower Drive
Burr Ridge, IL 60527
Phone: 630.734.5122
Fax: 630.734.5056
aaron.skog@railslibraries.info
http://support.swanlibraries.net