Office of the Controller
CITY SERVICES AUDITOR
REQUEST FOR QUOTES (“RFq”) FOR
CONTROLLER’S OFFICE
Library Open Hours Analysis
RFq#CON2012-05
CONTACT: Richard Kurylo, , (415) 554-7536
Background
The City and County of San Francisco (City) Controller’s Office, City Services Auditor (CSA) division, seeks to provide public survey and research consulting services for the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL). This survey and research engagement shall gauge public opinion to the Library’s system-wide open hours and strategic planning initiatives. The results will inform a mandated community input process in each supervisorial district during Fall 2012 as required by the Charter of the City and County of San Francisco, Section 16.109. The City requires an expert firm with significant survey methodology experience to help the City develop a robust open hours assessment and analysis of SFPL’s overall library systems and program planning.
The City is soliciting quotes from firms, hereafter referred to as “Proposers.” / Maximum Cost:
$30,000
Desired Start Date:
July 9, 2012
Estimated Contract Term:
The estimated contract term is six (6) months with the goal to have all work completed within three (3) months. Actual contract term may vary depending upon service and project needs.
Subcontracting Requirement:
There is no Human Rights Commission (HRC) Local Business Enterprise (LBE) subcontracting goal for this Request For Quotes and resulting contract(s).
Schedule*
RFq Issued
Deadline for Questions
Deadline for Answers
Deadline for Quotes
Contract award intent notification
*Each date subject to change / 5-30-2012
6-5-2012
(12 pm PT)
6-12-2012
(5 pm PT)
6-19-2012
(12 pm PT)
6-26-2012
(5 pm PT) / Questions and Communications
To ensure fair and equal access to information about this Request For Quotes, e-mail your questions to . Questions must be in writing and received by the Deadline for Questions. No questions will be accepted after this time with the exception of City vendor requirement questions.
A summary of the questions and answers pertaining to this Request For Quotes will be e-mailed by the Deadline for Answers to each firm that e-mailed questions, as well as other potential Proposers.
Controller’s Office ● City Hall, Room 316 ● 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place ● San Francisco, CA 94102 ● 415.554.7500 http://www.sfgov.org/controller
1. Introduction
Proposition C, passed in November 2003, instructed the City’s Controller to serve as City Services Auditor (CSA), City Performance Unit. This role makes the Controller’s Office responsible for providing objective, rigorous measurement of City service levels and effectiveness. City Performance Unit staff will be managing this Request for Quotes process. The Controller’s Office intends to enter into a contract with the selected firm, and will have final approval on all contract deliverables prior to payment. For more information regarding the Controller’s Office and CSA, visit http://www.sfcontroller.org.
The Library Preservation Fund, renewed by Proposition D (November 2007), requires that the Library Commission assess and modify as appropriate the hours of operation (“open hours”) of the main and branch libraries at least once every five years. The Library Commission must gather community input to help set the criteria for determining service hours. The library is required by City Charter Section 16.109(f) (see Appendix A) to conduct a comprehensive assessment of needs regarding service hours, including conducting mandated public hearings in each supervisorial district. The library must complete its planning process and set its adjusted open hours by July 1, 2013. CSA has entered into a technical assistance agreement with the library to conduct a review and analysis of its system-wide open hours and strategic planning initiatives.
Previously library open hours were added according to Library Commission recommendations made to the Board of Supervisors. The library hopes to design a more robust needs assessment process that will lead to better strategies to reach city library users across its system. Since determining system-wide open hours impacts major staffing, administrative, and facilities decisions, library staff must ensure that community input and any subsequent analysis represents various groups of library users and highlights community needs. The library is also interested in using the public assessment to explore its long-term strategic planning goals and initiatives for the next five years.
Currently, the library system is open for 1,307.5 hours per week (approximately eight percent above the mandated Charter requirement of 1,211 hours) across the Main Library and 27 branches, which averages out to approximately 6.67 open hours a day per branch.
The SFPL has a Main location and 27 branch facilities located in the following San Francisco supervisorial districts (alphabetized and by district):
Exhibit 11:
Branches / District No. / District No. / BranchesAnza / 1 / 1 / Anza
Bayview-A.E. Waden / 10 / 1 / Richmond
Bernal Heights / 9 / 2 / Golden Gate Valley
Chinatown / 3 / 2 / Marina
Eureka Valley-H.M.M. / 8 / 2 / Presidio
Excelsior / 11 / 3 / Chinatown
Glen Park / 8 / 3 / North Beach
Golden Gate Valley / 2 / 4 / Ortega
Ingleside / 11 / 4 / Parkside
Main Library / 6 / 5 / Park
Marina / 2 / 5 / Sunset
Merced / 7 / 5 / Western Addition
Mission / 9 / 6 / Main Library
Mission Bay / 6 / 6 / Mission Bay
Noe Valley-Sally Brunn / 8 / 7 / Merced
North Beach / 3 / 7 / West Portal
Oceanview / 11 / 8 / Eureka Valley-H.M.M.
Ortega / 4 / 8 / Glen Park
Park / 5 / 8 / Noe Valley-Sally Brunn
Parkside / 4 / 9 / Bernal Heights
Portola / 9 / 9 / Mission
Potrero / 10 / 9 / Portola
Presidio / 2 / 10 / Bayview-A.E. Waden
Richmond / 1 / 10 / Potrero
Sunset / 5 / 10 / Visitacion Valley
Visitacion Valley / 10 / 11 / Excelsior
West Portal / 7 / 11 / Ingleside
Western Addition / 5 / 11 / Oceanview
The following table represents branches that have the most/least number of open hours and the average hours across each location.
Exhibit 12:
Branches with Most/Least Open Hours /Most # of Open Hours / Branch location / Average Daily Open Hours /
1st / Main library / 8.57 /
2nd / Chinatown,Excelsior, Mission, Richmond, West Portal, Sunset / 7.86 /
3rd / Merced / 7.43 /
Least # of Open Hours / Branch location / Average Daily Open Hours /
1st / Portola / 5.14 /
2nd / Mission Bay / 5.43 /
3rd / Visitacion / 5.57 /
4th / Glen Park, Golden Gate Valley, Potrero / 5.71 /
The table below illustrates the average number of hours per open branch by day of the week.
Exhibit 13:
Day of the Week / Avg. Daily Open Hrs/ Open
Branches
Monday / 7.6 / 23
Tuesday / 9.8 / 28
Wednesday / 8.9 / 28
Thursday / 7.7 / 28
Friday / 5.0 / 28
Saturday / 6.6 / 28
Sunday / 4.1 / 17
2. Scope of Work
This scope of work is a general guide to the work the City Performance Unit expects to be performed, and is not a complete listing of all services that may be required or desired. The Contractor selected to provide services under this Request For Quotes (“RFq”) will be referred to as “Contractor.”
To minimize duplication of effort and to allow the City Performance Unit to coordinate data requests and data available for previous and future projects, the selected Contractor’s findings and data may be shared by the City with other City contractors, as deemed appropriate by the City.
2.1. DESCRIPTION of Services
The Contractor shall provide public survey and research consulting services, as specified through the following tasks:
Survey and Research Administration Services
The Contractor shall conduct research, survey, and statistical design, methodology and implementation services for the San Francisco Public Library Open Hours & Strategic Planning Project during a 60- to 90-day community input process. Key population groups include library administration, neighborhood library groups, library users and non-users, and other relevant stakeholders. The Contractor will examine through qualitative and quantitative survey methodologies San Francisco Public Library’s community profile (e.g., growth, demographics, and education levels, etc.), the most appropriate library open hours and associated library services with respect to community needs, future trends and technologies, library resources to respond to service demands, and the overall user experience.
Although demonstrated experience in surveying and statistical tools is critical to this project function, the Contractor must also have experience with other effective techniques and strategies to help local governments gather data from its residents to enhance overall library programming and planning. These tools and techniques may include but are not limited to the following methodologies: geo-coding, focus groups, in-person interviews, polling, site observations, and social networking crowd-sourcing.
Technical Assistance and Strategic Consultation
Although the volume of project work will include research and survey data collection and analysis, the Contractor shall assist the library in framing survey analysis and findings to inform a subsequent public hearing process in Fall 2012 and link SFPL’s mission and vision to it for the purposes of public education. The Contractor shall provide technical assistance and make recommendations on how to gather community feedback in a controlled yet open and comfortable atmosphere for public dialogue on strategic priorities, goals, and objectives. The Contractor shall provide library staff with best practices on how to help audiences identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the library system. In addition, the Contractor may provide guidance on how to effectively record public commentary in ways to ensure that audience feedback is accurately captured and provide direction on developing an actionable plan based on survey analysis and findings.
Report
The Contractor shall develop a final report accurately gauging public perspective on: (a) library hours and usage, (b) library services and programs, (c) strategic priorities and planning, (d) challenges and lessons learned from the community input process. The final report will also provide recommendations as to how to frame the findings in such a way so as to best facilitate subsequent public hearing processes in each supervisorial district. The intent of the report should position the library to proactively validate and/or modify service hours that meets the needs of the library community in a cost-effective manner and educates stakeholders about system-wide library services.
Specifically, the Contractor shall complete the following associated activities:
· Co-develop a project scope of work and completion timeline with City Performance staff and the Library working group for survey work and negotiate terms and conditions based on its direction.
· Become acclimated to project goals, objectives, library census data, and strategic planning documents for the purpose of developing a comprehensive and effective suite of survey instruments.
· Develop key areas of inquiry and associated methodologies and flowcharts to determine the most accurate and effective ways to capture opinion data on those topics.
· Design survey instruments to capture accurate and detailed opinion data on open hours, overall library usage, space usage (through the Branch Post Occupancy Evaluation) and strategic priorities from a diverse population of library users.
· Consider best translation services in an online survey format in languages such as Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese, Filipino, etc.
· Craft quantitative and qualitative survey findings in a visually engaging way that is easy to read across a wide audience of diverse citizens.
· Assist in identifying service priorities, goals and objectives and identify gaps where current library operations and services are insufficient to meet the identified service priorities through survey analysis.
· Provide recommendations as to how to frame the public opinion findings in such a way so as to best facilitate a subsequent public hearing process in each supervisorial district.
· Make recommendations on how to gather community feedback in a controlled yet open and comfortable atmosphere for public dialogue on strategic priorities, goals, and objectives
· Provide best practices on the facilitation of the strategic planning process including data gathering and utilizing surveys, focus groups and community meetings to identify the needs of library customers, library staff and library stakeholders.
· Produce a final report of survey findings focused on the public perception of open hours, overall library usage, and strategic priorities.
· Work closely with the Controller’s Office City performance staff, Library Commission, Library Administration, other stakeholders, and community residents.
· Be available to start the project effective July 9, 2012.
3. Evaluation Criteria
Quotes and all related materials must be received by the Deadline for Quotes. Quotes must be provided for services as outlined in Section 2 of this request.
Proposer Requirements
Required:
· Proposer must have completed two (2) similar projects involving survey and statistical methodologies and strategic consultation in the last three (3) years. One of these two projects must have been for a substantial public agency. NOTE: please provide copies of the final reports for these projects with your Quote.
· Proposer’s team members must have a minimum of three (3) years’ experience in conducting survey and statistical methodologies and strategic planning.
· Proposer must have full availability for this project beginning on July 9, 2012, and for the subsequent ninety (90) days.
Preferred:
· Proposer has survey and strategic consultation experience with public libraries.
· Proposer has experience working closely with large public municipalities.
Proposer Scoring
Quotes will be evaluated in accordance with the criteria below and the information provided by the Proposer. Evaluation criteria shall be collectively worth 100 points.
Project Approach - 40 points
a) High-level project approach demonstrates understanding of the project and the tasks to be performed.
b) Expert-level knowledge of a wide array of methodologies and tools to guide public information gathering.
c) Experience with other effective techniques and strategies to help local governments gather data from its residents to enhance overall library programming and planning.
Staff Capability – 30 points
a) Proposed staff’s qualifications, experience, and education in designing and conducting research, survey and statistical administration services for a community input process.