The supply of spoken word and large print material to Hampshire's Library Service - including authors Danielle Steel and Ben Okri

Tender description

Hampshire County Council Library Service (The Council) has a purchase contract with a publisher for the supply of alternative format books for our 40 branch libraries and Home Library Service. The contract is due to expire at the end of March 2024 with a new contract due to last for 4 years up to 31 March 2028. The estimated maximum value of the contract over a 4 year period based on current annual expenditure, although subject to change, is £76,669. The scope of the contract is for the competitive supply of books in large print for adults, audiobooks in CD and Playaway formats for adults and CD format for children. Coverage must include the publisher's new and backlist titles in library editions. New titles must be available to order in advance of publication and be supplied at the point of publication. The Council require a widespread choice to support in-house selection of bestsellers, contemporary fiction, genre fiction, non-fiction and children's titles. As an example for this contract, we would expect current and the back catalogue of works, in the formats specified above, by the following authors to be available for supply: Danielle Steel Ben Okri Graham Hurley Philip Reeve (audiobook format) The Council wants to identify from the market if any potential suppliers have the publishers rights to supply the books and audiobooks in the formats specified. The Council is looking to undertake a quotation exercise with suppliers that can demonstrate they can supply the identified authors in the formats requested. Lot 1: The provision of alternative format material, spoken word and large print, serves the needs of two interrelated and socially excluded groups for Hampshire County Council (the Council); the elderly and the print disabled. The provision of spoken word and large print is a key area of library service provision and is one of our unique selling points. The Council has previously been restricted on how to award the supply contract, as specific suppliers have negotiated exclusive rights with the original publishers to enable them to reproduce their works in large print for adults, audiobooks in CD and Playaway formats for adults and CD format for children. The Council believe the current supplier has exclusive rights to the titles being produced and they do not supply their titles for the library market to other publishers or via any third party. The Council wants to identify from the market if any potential suppliers have the publishers rights to supply the books and audiobooks in the formats specified. The Council is looking to undertake a quotation exercise with suppliers that can demonstrate they can supply the identified authors in the formats requested. Addition, any supplier wishing to quote will need to ensure any EDI quotes, orders, fulfilment and invoices must be compatible with Spydus, our Library Management System. The stock must arrive fully processed and shelf ready. This includes, for each title, supplier EDI appliance of specified rotation rotas with variable start libraries within each individual rota. Delivery of stock is currently to a central location on a monthly basis. Any supplier who would be interested in quoting for the opportunity needs to register on the Council e-tendering platform, Intend. Once registered, you will need to send an intend correspondence providing details of the identified authors you have the publishing rights for with regards to supply the large print books, audiobooks and Playaway formats. Any supplier who can demonstrate they have the relevant publishing rights and meet the scope identified above will then be invited to quote for the opportunity. Interested suppliers need to have registered their interest by 14:00 Tuesday 19th December.