SWAN Board:
My email sent to Kathie Henn, Klein Thorpe Jenkins. Kathie’s office voicemail indicated she would be out of the office all day today.
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
From: Aaron Skog
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2013 5:33 PM
To: 'Kathie T. Henn'
Cc: 'Jeannie Dilger'; Brande Redfield
Subject: SWAN Process for Proposal Evaluations
Hi Kathie,
The SWAN consortia as you know is working through its procurement of its next ILS software. The process to date included an RFP to which we received 5 proposals from vendors. As outlined in the RFP document on page 24 & 25 (section 1.3.29) criteria and scoring were used. The section 1.3.31 on page 25 includes this statement:
“The SWAN ILS Committee will compile the scores, which during the first phase of the evaluation process, as described by ¶1.3.23, will be used to select two or more proposals for further evaluation during the second phase; and which during the second phase will be the basis for selecting the successful proposal.”
Link to RFP document online:
http://support.swanlibraries.net/system/files/Public/SWAN%20ILS%20Committee/SWAN_ILS_RFP.pdf
So on Thursday 9/19 and 9/20 the SWAN ILS Committee met and reviewed the five proposals. After scoring them, we narrowed our vendors to the second phase, moving ahead with 3 vendors.
Once the two day meeting adjourned, I notified the five vendors if they were moving forward within the second phase or if they were eliminated. I have received inquiries from one of the vendors about the scoring and why they were eliminated.
Here are recommendations I received from our ILS search consultant Rob McGee about how to proceed with inquiries from library directors/staff or from the five vendors.
1. To directors: describe the evaluation process and unanimous outcome and unanimity of decisions.
Aaron: this has not been done specifically, other than sharing the names of the 3 vendors that will be in our second phase software demonstrations.
KTJ: Would this statement be sufficient?
Our ILS search consulting Rob McGee (of RMG Consulting) has stated that the procurement process has not been completed so that we should not release the scores at this point in time. The ILS Committee also agreed with that recommendation to not share the scoring at this stage as it could imply a front runner status. Obviously there was a lot of discussion over the two days last week that the Committee had with Rob McGee present. The scoring process was completed by the Committee with a unanimous decision for each criteria. The second phase does not represent an accumulation of scores on the ones awarded, rather revising the scores based on updated information from the demos, calling references, and reviewing recommendations from task force groups. For this reason, the Committee cannot make the scoring available until the process has been completed.
2. With vendors: maintain confidentiality of details of deliberations & use language approved by attorney. Check with attorney on this and let her know about the details you recorded in the scoring instrument & get clear understanding on your requirement to disclose & not to disclose & if disclosure to members is required then determine when, e.g., at end of procurement process.
Aaron: our scoring eliminated two vendors, Polaris and our current vendor Innovative Interfaces. Polaris would like to discuss why they were eliminated, which I indicated I would do after sending them some dates to schedule a meeting. That is where it stands at this point.
KTJ: Would the notes made during the scoring process during that two day meeting be available to FOIA?
3. Get her advice on how best to handle members & whether & how anything should be said to them at this stage that is different from what is said to vendors.
Aaron: The selection process has been completed with OMA guidelines to date, and we will continue to do so. However, I don’t want to risk the appearance of hiding anything from our libraries or the vendors involved, particularly the eliminated ones.
KTJ: What is your advice knowing that our RFP outlines the process and all vendors involved would have reviewed it within the RFP document section that I noted above? What about making things available in the SWAN website that allows access only to member library staff, e.g. our Member’s Only login?
I also have two questions for you regarding the second phase software demonstrations made by the three vendors.
4. Web-streaming the software demonstrations: if these are streamed, can I provide the link to the meeting behind the Member’s Only login or will it have to be publicly posted?
5. Video recording the software demos: can a recording be made available only to the Member’s Only login? I am anticipating that some vendors will want some assurance that competitors could not see the recordings.
Our software demonstrations will involve having online registration to attend in person and sharing the streaming and recording website URLs. The first two dates are next week, Thursday October 3 and Friday October 4th. So your opinion on this would be valuable as SWAN intends to post the agenda as soon as it becomes finalized.
Kind regards,
Aaron Skog
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