Interlibrary Loan Platform

The Vendor is required to provide interlibrary loan platform for include:
- Mandatory solution requirements
1. Technical requirements
•    The solution shall be SaaS, and shall be hosted by the contractor such that no hardware or software needs to be maintained by agency libraries. 
•    The solution shall be an established product already available in the market and shall be deployable with no development (i.e., commercial off the-shelf). 
•    The solution must support interoperability between integrated library systems currently in use in state libraries and library systems 
•    The solution must support ISO 18626 (interlibrary loan transactions) 
•    The solution must support z39.50 (information retrieval protocol)
•    The solution must support NCIP (NISO circulation interchange protocol). 
•    The proposal must indicate which version(s) of NCIP are supported.
•    The solution must support sip2
2. Functional requirements
•    Personal information collected, processed, transmitted, or stored in the solution will be subject to the act and must be protected against unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, modification, and destruction. 
•    The solution must include appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards, including the use of strong encryption for personal information both in transit and at rest, secure management of encryption keys, and access controls that ensure only authorized library staff can access patron information.
•    The solution must also ensure that all data exchanges, whether internal to the solution or between the solution and other systems, occur over encrypted and authenticated channels. 
•    The contractor must maintain monitoring, logging, and incident-response processes that align with privacy and security best practices. 
•    The proposal must describe all safeguards, encryption approaches, and other security measures built into the solution to protect personal information throughout its lifecycle.
- Desirable solution functionality
1. Technical
•    The solution should support current GSM protocol and should ensure that all GSM-based communications operate reliably and securely within the solution. The contractor should also ensure ongoing compatibility as protocol updates or enhancements are released.
•    The solution should be accessible to users with slower than average internet speeds and to users with lower available bandwidth.
2. Lending sequence
•    The solution should include lending sequence functionality.
•    The lending sequence should automatically forward an incoming request to the next library service point in the sequence when the assigned library service point does not respond within a defined time period.
•    The solution should allow for the modification of lending sequences, priority settings, and escalation rules, managed through the library staff– facing (back-end) interface.
•    The lending sequence should be visible to library staff initiating the request to monitor the progress of the request. 
•    Audit logs of lending sequence actions and associated performance metrics should be available to library staff and administrators.
3. Load balancing
•    The solution should support automated load balancing of requests amongst network operational partners and library service points to balance workload and improve turnaround time. 
•    Load balancing should consider factors such as queue length, fill rate, and administrator set limits when determining how requests are routed. 
•    The solution should provide monitoring tools and audit logs of routing decisions. 
•    The solution should identify and prioritize the item held by the geographically closest library service point to the patron’s home library service point, in order to minimize shipping distance.
4. Interlibrary loan processing materials
•    The solution should support generation of physical identification for interlibrary loan items to ensure clear routing and handling. 
•    The solution should provide the ability to produce processing materials such as book bands, routing slips and return slips, with ample space for key information such as borrowing library service point address, lending library service point address, request number, due date, and return instructions. 
•    The solution should allow library staff to add optional notes to the request prior to generating the processing materials, and these notes should appear on the printed materials along with the required fields. 
•    The solution should support auto return label printing when an item is marked for return, automatically generating a label with the lending library service point’s address, request number, and any required routing details. 
•    The proposal should also describe any alternate or additional physical identification options supported by the solution (e.g., routing slips, adhesive labels, or other secure, non-damaging methods).