The Smithsonian Institution (SI) is seeking a contractor to provide professional audio information technology services for a pilot audio tour project for the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s (“SAAM”) Luce Foundation Center for American Art. The purpose of the pilot is to test one or two technology solutions for the Luce Center’s audio information needs, evaluate the service with the public, and gather data and experience for designing a more permanent audio information solution for the Luce Center and other areas of the Museum, including its exhibitions and permanent collection spaces. The Museum is interested in receiving proposals that utilize visitors’ own devices, such as cell phones, as well as mobile devices that would be distributed by Museum staff from the Luce Center’s information desk. The Luce Foundation Center for American Art is a visible storage facility within SAAM that displays around 3,300 objects from the Museum’s collection on 3 levels. The Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery—two museums that tell America's stories through art, history and biography—share a National Historic Landmark building, now known as the Donald W. Reynolds Center, in downtown Washington D.C. The objects in the Luce Foundation Center include 18th-21st century paintings and sculpture, folk art, and contemporary craft that are displayed in 57 floor-to-ceiling glass cases. In addition, miniature paintings, medals, and craft jewelry are displayed in pneumatic drawers. Interpretation is provided in the form of 10 touch-screen computer kiosks located around the Luce Center, and a staffed information desk provides assistance for visitors seven days a week. The audio information service will provide visitors with access to pre-recorded commentaries on objects on all three floors of the Luce Center. For the purposes of this pilot, 100 objects will be commented, probably representing one object in each case-side (there are 57 cases in the Luce Center, each with an “a” side and a “b” side). Audio tour content for about 100 objects and overview messages for about 10 display case-sides will be provided by SAAM for the purposes of this pilot. In addition, SAAM will provide welcome and instructional audio messages as required to explain to visitors how to use the audio service. Each audio message will be available as a unique digital file in WAV or MP3 format. At a minimum, the contractor shall be required to provide the following services: A. Audio playback system Audio information should be available to visitors on mobile devices that allow the visitor to listen to the information while looking at objects in the display cases. The mobile device may be the visitor’s own, and/or provided at the Luce Center’s information desk. If the proposed device is a cellphone, the vendor’s content management and playback solution should be able to work with a principal telephone number specified by the Museum. B. Interface to audio content Visitors should be able to identify objects about which they wish to hear audio commentary by manually entering or selecting a unique identifier for each object through a keypad or other interface on the mobile audio playback device. For the purposes of this pilot, temporary markers can be inserted in the display cases to identify the objects that have audio content. C. Content management system The audio information solution should allow the Museum’s staff to update content available to visitors regularly, at least weekly, for preference daily. These updates may include adding new content, changing existing content, or removing audio files from the system. The content management system should support both pre-recorded content, and content recorded ad hoc as required. D. Usage reporting The Museum requires a usage reporting system, providing some or all of the following nformation: 1. Which commentaries have been listened to, in which order, by visitor and by call or visit; 2. Frequency with which messages are accessed overall, by all visitors; 3. In the case of a cellphone tour, how many calls have been placed by each visitor, and their duration; 4. Visitors’ place of origin (residence or origin of their phone number in the case of a cellphone tour); 5. Whether visitors listen to the entire message or stop before the end; 6. Whether visitors use the messaging services (see below); 7. Dates and times of peak and low usages, as well as average usage by day, week, month, and throughout the overall period of the pilot. This is a best value procurement. All firms responding to this solicitation will be required to submit a business and technical proposal for purposes of evaluation. Proposals will be evaluated using the following weighted factors, as described in greater detail in the forthcoming Solicitation: 1) Technical Capabilities; 2) Past Experience; 3) Past Performance; and 4) Contract Price. All evaluation factors other than contract price, when combined, will be granted more weight than contract price. The Solicitation documents will be available upon written request, on or about the week of May 15, 2008, from the Smithsonian Institution, Office of Contracting, P.O. Box 37012, CC 350, MRC 1200, Washington, DC 20013-7012, Attn: Jennifer L. Kroan. Prospective Offerors must provide a written request for solicitation documents on company letterhead with complete mailing address, telephone and facsimile numbers, email address and name of the appropriate company representative. Written requests for solicitation documents may be delivered to the attention of Jennifer L. Kroan to the above address; sent by facsimile transmission to 202-633-7308; or sent by email to:
[email protected]. Prospective Offerors are encouraged to submit their written requests as early as possible, and preferably no later than May 9, 2008. The due date for submission of proposals will be provided in the solicitation documents. The Smithsonian Institution expressly reserves the right in its sole discretion to not proceed with the solicitation or any subsequent negotiations or contract. This pre-solicitation notice shall not commit the Smithsonian to pay any preparation costs nor to provide reimbursements for any costs associated with a response to the same.