SIRSI Users Group Meeting

Technology Committee Report

January 15, 2003

· On October 24^th the Technology Committee met with Robb McGee of RMG, Inc. for the day. Mr. McGee discussed the template RFP that he provided as part of our contract with him. The template was 210 pages. He asked questions and made suggestions for various sections of the template. He divided the project of selecting a new vendor into the following parts: working on and completing the RFP template; sending out the RFP, receiving proposals from vendors and ranking them, evaluating the proposals and selecting a few for demonstrations; selecting the vendor; and, contract negotiation. McGee worked with the Committee to form Task Force Groups that would eventually be involved in ranking proposals from vendors. He suggested that a sub-group from the Technology Committee be assigned to work on the RFP draft and to meet with him the next day.

· The sub-group called the “RFP Team” met October 25th with Robb to begin the process of completing the RFP and revising the template to reflect the Users Group’s needs. The sub-group included: Becky Wright, Tammy Schnell, Shelley Koehler, Steve Craven, Tim Childers, Tim Schnabel, Paul Johnson and Pat Burg.

· The RFP Team met for an entire day each week, from the end of October through the end of November to complete the RFP. We incorporated comments and suggestions that the Technology Committee members recommended, and asked other members to help us further with specific sections, such as Home bound programs and Serials. RPLS staff completed sections that were relative to the LLSAP, and surveys were sent out to members, accordingly.

· The Governing Board received copies of the RFP Draft on disk at the December 5^th Governing Board meeting. Robb McGee was sent a copy for review, also. Paul will talk in more detail about the status of the RFP Draft in his Report. We are hoping to send the RFP out on February 5^th.

· The RFP Team revisited the Evaluation Task Force concept, and made suggestions for Chairs of those Task Forces. When the Task Force Chairs were finalized, Paul Johnson sent a note on the ListServ inviting interested LLSAP members to serve on the Task Forces.

· The Task Forces members will have an orientation meeting today at 1:00 p.m. Part of the orientation will be to schedule meetings for each Task Force to rank proposals. The work of the Task Force members is to rank proposals when they arrive from vendors. The Task Forces were established to divide the work of proposal ranking among many, and to allow each group to become “experts” about one or two areas. We expect the proposals from vendors to start arriving in the spring. The Task Force members have a very important and demanding job, and we are grateful for so many participants.

· After the proposals are ranked – 1,2,3,4 by the Task Forces, an Evaluation Team will select three proposals based on the highest ranked proposals and on recommended criteria. At the January 9^th Governing Board meeting, the Technology Committee made a recommendation that the RFP Team members become the Evaluation Team. The Governing Board approved and passed this recommendation.

· The first meeting of the Evaluation Team will be on January 24^th to decide which vendors to send the RFP to.