Agenda - 06-15-2021; 8-l - Innovative Interfaces, Inc. Multi-Year Contract

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1 ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: June 15, 2021 Action Agenda Item No. 8-1 SUBJECT: Innovative Interfaces, Inc. Multi-Year Contract DEPARTMENT: Information Technologies (IT) and Library Services ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT: Jim Northrup, 919-245-2276 Lucinda Munger, 919-245-2528 PURPOSE: To authorize the Manager to sign a multi-year maintenance and support contract for $164,396.09 (paid over three years) with Innovative Interfaces, Inc. BACKGROUND: Orange County first entered into an agreement with Innovative Interfaces, Inc. in November 2012 as a means to replace an aging integrated library management system (ILS). The Innovative agreement includes support for Sierra and Encore cloud-based applications. The Sierra application provides the following functions: • Manages the inventory of all library materials • Manages all circulation transactions (checkouts, returns, renewals, etc.) • Sends automated notices for hold pickups, overdue items, and billed items • Manages all patron (user) records • Manages the acquisitions process for new materials • Manages fines for overdue materials and billing process for damaged and lost materials The Encore application is the Library's public catalog and provides the following functions: • Online catalog that users can use to browse library collections at home and in the buildings • Allows users to place holds, track reading history, create lists, and renew items through an online account Annual software maintenance and support costs are centralized under the Information Technologies Department (IT) and are typically renewed on an annual basis. This renewal process involves getting an annual quote from each of the one hundred vendors IT actively manages. The best rates are subsequently negotiated for that particular year in order to prevent increases in maintenance costs. Decreasing agreement costs is always the goal. Often vendors annually increase their price by a certain percentage. This percentage can vary widely from year to year and from vendor to vendor. Negotiating multi-year contracts is a means to decrease support costs for any given product or to at least keep costs predictable for future years, with decreasing agreement costs always the goal. In recent years, an effort has been made to seek written contracts for all annual maintenance agreements and wherever possible negotiate multi-year agreements. Typically on new software acquisitions, IT assesses the value