The National Library of Ireland proposes to engage in a competitive process in order to establish a multi-operator framework agreement for Collection Management Services. The services are grouped into 5 Lots to enable the National Library of Ireland to select appropriate service providers at the time of a mini-tender. The 5 Lots are: 1. Metadata Creation, QA and Enhancement; 2. Processing; 3. Digitisation; 4. Preservation; 5. Project Management. There is no minimum or maximum number of Lots that tenderers can bid for in the case of Lots 1 to 4 but tenderers cannot bid for Lot 5 (Project Management services) on its own.

Includes the creation of descriptive metadata for all Library material, including digital material e.g. websites archived as part of the NLI's web archiving programme. The NLI maintains all descriptive metadata in MARC21 format in its Library Management System, Virtua. Depending on the nature of the project covered by the mini-tender, metadata may be required to be created outside of Virtua for mapping to MARC2.

Material acquired by the NLI undergoes a number of processes on its journey through the Library — from acquisition through to cataloguing, to shelving or possibly digitisation. Access to material in the collection (for readers or for digitisation) is dependent on processing being completed successfully. These support activities are crucial to the provision of full access to the collections.

The NLI recognises the importance of developing its digital collections and to maximise access to its resources, enabling users to work with our collections in new and innovative ways. The specific processes, outputs and standards used for digitisation will be specified and agreed as part of each mini-tender process. Depending on the material being digitised and on the nature of the project covered by the mini-tender, this activity may take place onsite or offsite.

This activity may include cleaning, boxing, bar-coding, security tagging and labelling.

In addition to the specific activities described in Lots 1-4, for some mini-tenders the Library may request the provision of dedicated Project Management resources to co-ordinate and manage the activities and to ensure timely delivery of the project deliverables specified in the mini-tender.