SWAN Board:

 

This morning I had a conversation with the SWAN attorney Kathie Henn. She has followed up in writing but I wanted to summarize for you all what we discussed.

 

1.       Disclosing the scores to the vendors Polaris and Innovative should not be done until the RFP process has been completed, which Kathie stated was a signed contract with the new vendor.

2.       She has revised a written statement I created for the purposes of sharing it with a vendor requesting this scoring information or other decision making documents. That statement is below in her email response.

3.       She answered some questions about live-streaming our Main Meeting room demos for the three vendors or recording these sessions:

a.       If we live-stream, it should be shared on our public agenda for the meeting.

b.      There should be some statement at the start of the meeting by one of the SWAN ILS co-chairs (suggestion provided in her email)

 

We are setting up the demo events online in L2, registering the task force members. They are not final yet, which I know for some of you on the director’s task force will require some adjusting once I have completed the work. So if you are getting questions, tell everyone that there will be a membership wide announcement, we are incorporating repeat sessions when we can, and that some recording/streaming will be done.

 

Kathie’s email with embedded responses in my original email below.

 

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: Kathie T. Henn [mailto:KTHenn@KTJLAW.com]
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2013 1:06 PM
To: Aaron Skog
Cc: Jeannie Dilger; Brande Redfield
Subject: RE: SWAN Process for Proposal Evaluations

 

Aaron:
My responses are listed below in RED. 

 

In addition, if you decide to either stream or videotape the meeting and post it on your website, I would include the following on the meeting agenda as the first item after roll call:

 

Chair's Report

This meeting is available via (streaming (state where or how to access) or on the SWAN website at _______ and will be posted on or about DATE).

 

 

Please contact me if you have any additional questions or would like to discuss this further.

 

 

Kathie Henn
Klein, Thorpe and Jenkins, Ltd.
20 N. Wacker Drive, Suite 1660
Chicago, Illinois 60606
312.984.6424
fax:  312.984.6444
email:  kthenn@ktjlaw.com

 

 

 

 

From: Aaron Skog [mailto:aaron.skog@railslibraries.info]
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.

Kathie Henn: This looks fine.  I would revise the last two sentences to read, "The second phase, as stated more fully in the RFP, involves revising the scores based on updated information from the demos, reference checks and reviewing recommendations from task force groups.  The Committee cannot make the scoring available until a contract has been awarded."

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.

Kathie Henn: I would not schedule a meeting until after a contract is awarded.

3.      
KTJ: Would the notes made during the scoring process during that two day meeting be available to FOIA? No. FOIA contains an exception for such information.  It provides an exemption for:

                Proposals and bids for any contract, grant, or agreement, including information which if it were disclosed would frustrate procurement or give an advantage to any person proposing to enter into          a contractor agreement with the body, until an award or final selection is made. Information prepared by or for the body in preparation of a bid solicitation shall be exempt until an award or final   selection is made. 

 

 

4.       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?

Kathie Henn: As we discussed, all vendors are aware of the process.  I don't see a reason to limit information to members only if it is discussed at an open meeting.

 

I also have two questions for you regarding the second phase software demonstrations made by the three vendors.

 

5.       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?

Kathie Henn: I think it would be better to publicly post it.

 

6.       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. 

Kathie Henn: Same answer as #5.  Vendors may want that assurance, but I'm not sure that we can provide it.  If they are providing presentations at open meetings, then the presentation is public. 

               

               

 

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