[Libs-Or] Draft RFP proposes ERIC changes: Comments invited by May 9th

[Pam Horan]

All librarians, teachers, researchers and students who use the
services of ERIC (the Educational Resources Information Center)
may want to review the U.S. Department of Education's draft
request for proposals (RFP) and make comments by May 9, 2003.

All ERIC Clearinghouses, including the Clearinghouse on Educational
Management located at the University of Oregon
<http://eric.uoregon.edu/>, are in the final year of their 5-year
contracts. The U.S. Department of Education has released a
draft RFP that outlines the scope of work for the ERIC system
beginning January 2004. According to the draft, all 16
Clearinghouses would be eliminated, and their indexing and
abstracting functions would be centralized.

The clearinghouses provide for collection, selection, indexing, and
abstracting of journal articles and non-journal documents for the
ERIC database. The ERIC database is the world’s largest
and most frequently used education database, comprised of more
than one million bibliographic records, spanning 1966 to the present.

Under the Dept. of Education's proposal, the 16 clearinghouse
websites, publications programs, and user-support services would
cease to exist, and the new contractor would launch a new website
with a bibliographic and full-text database search engine.

Major changes provided in this draft include the centralization
of ERIC by the government into a single contractor,
thus eliminating subject expert clearinghouses altogether, replacing
them with subject specialists that only advise the new ERIC
contractor.

Additional major changes in ERIC would be the
elimination of digests and publications, as well as AskERIC.
You may view the draft RFP during the public-comment period that
ends May 9, 2003, at:


http://www.eps.gov/spg/ED/OCFO/CPO/Reference%2DNumber%2DERIC2003/listing.html

                           You may address comments to:
                           Jeff Halsted, Contract Specialist
                           E-mail: Jeff.C.Halsted at ed.gov
                           Telephone: (202) 708-8283
                           Fax: (202) 708-9817
                           U.S. Mail: U.S. Department of Education
                           Contracts and Purchasing Operations
                           Regional Office Building, Room 3069
                           7th and D Streets, SW
                           Washington, DC, 20202

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Pam Horan
Technology Planning Consultant
Library Development Services
Oregon State Library
Tel. (503) 378-2112 Ext. 224
Fax (503) 378-6439
pam.horan at state.or.us