Public procurement notice: Prior Information Notice Without Call For Competition
Published: 2023-03-01
Buyer: Helsingin kaupunki
Country: FI
Contract type: Services
CPV classification: 22113000 | 22200000 | 32353000 | 48160000 | 72212160

Technical requirements: This is an invitation to a market dialogue regarding the content offered for the nationwide e-library project. For a description of the procurement under preparation, see “Description of the procurement”.
The market dialogue consists of a written reply to the questions asked by the procurement unit, possible subsequent comments on the preliminary tender invitation material and possible meetings with suppliers.
We kindly ask interested suppliers to register for the market dialogue by sending an email to kilpailutus@hansel.fi with the following subject: “City of Helsinki – E-library content, market dialogue” by March 10th, 2023. When registering, please provide the contact information of the contact person (name, email address, telephone number). In addition to providing the contact information, you can include a presentation of the company and the services and content it offers.
The purpose of this market dialogue is to find interested suppliers, identify various solution options and obtain information for the planned procurement. Replying to the market dialogue does not bind the supplier to participation in a possible competitive tendering process at a later stage. The procurement unit does not compensate interested suppliers for their participation in the market dialogue. The market dialogue does not bind any of the parties. The market dialogue does not oblige the procurement unit to carry out the procurement. The market dialogue is held in Finnish or English. The procurement unit reserves the right to decide on all further actions regarding, for example, the procurement, procurement method, schedules and content of the procurement. In deciding on further measures, the procurement unit may make use of the information obtained during the market dialogue.
The information presented in the prior information notice, such as the description of the procurement and the estimated date of publication of the procurement notice, are preliminary and indicative advance information.
Funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture, the e-library project aims to build a common e-library for Finnish municipalities in 2022 and 2023. The e-library will provide users of public libraries with electronic materials such as e-books, audiobooks and digital magazines and newspapers. The e-library project is coordinated by the Helsinki City Library and, from 2024 onwards, the e-library will be managed by an organisation set up for this purpose. Until now, e-books, audiobooks and digital magazines and newspapers have been procured from operators who have provided the content and presentation platform on a SaaS basis. In the e-library project, a technical solution will be built that enables customers to borrow, read and return e-books, audiobooks and digital magazines and newspapers procured from different sources on their own device using a browser, mobile app or other possible means on a single presentation platform, with the aim of creating a more user-friendly way for customers to borrow and read digital content. The presentation platform is currently under construction, and the technical specifications and requirements for the platform will become clear as the preparation progresses. The construction of the presentation platform is a separate entity from this planned procurement, and this request for information does not concern the construction of the platform. The subject of this request for information is the procurement of content offered for the e-library.
The e-library collection is planned to consist of domestic e-books and audiobooks, foreign e-books and audiobooks, domestic and foreign digital magazines and newspapers. The collection consists of content purchased by the library from one or more content providers. The content will be available for the library customers to search, borrow and read on a presentation platform developed in the e-library project. The presentation platform will combine content from different sources into a single collection visible to the customer, from which regional libraries can highlight desired content for their customers.
The market dialogue will explore the best solution for procuring content for the e-library. At this stage of the preparation, it has not yet been decided how and in what form the procurement will be carried out. The aim is to obtain more information about the possible options so that the potential procurement can be carried out in the most appropriate way from the procurement unit’s point of view. Interested suppliers can therefore participate in the market dialogue if they are interested in offering some of the content types to be procured for the e-library.
Funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture, the e-library project aims to build a common e-library for Finnish municipalities in 2022 and 2023. The e-library project is coordinated by the Helsinki City Library and, from 2024 onwards, the e-library will be managed by an organisation set up for this purpose.
The content of the e-library will be procured in 2023 by the e-library project, the City of Helsinki. The agreement will later be transferred to the e-library organisation to be established in 2023. The e-library content to be procured will be transferred as such to the organisation maintaining the e-library around the beginning of 2024.
After the project phase, the organisation that maintains the e-library will involve the Finnish public libraries that have joined it. Joining the e-library is voluntary for the libraries, and the final number of libraries that have joined will be seen later. In this document, ‘public library’ refers to local libraries maintained by municipalities.
There were 1.6 million library customers in Finland 2021, but not nearly all of them use e-library materials. For example, the number of (active and non-active) customers registered for the e-book services of libraries in Finland was approximately 410,000 in 2022. The use of e-materials is expected to increase in the future as a result of the general digitalisation trend.
Anyone whose municipality of residence has joined the e-library organisation can register as an e-library customer. The e-library offers the same content for all users.