LAS Interim Support

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The Library of Congress (LOC or the Library) and other large academic Libraries store a large portion of their important collections off site in high-density storage facilities (HDSF). High-density library storage facilities require digital inventory systems to manage, track and identify their inventory of collection items with rigorous accuracy, operational efficiency, and absolute reliability. These facilities manage millions of collections items of diverse formats and must support a high volume of transactions to ingest new materials and respond to requests for materials. Special inventory management software (IMS) is needed to manage the process of sending materials to the HDSF initially, as well as tracking the materials during circulation process until they are returned to their original location.

The IMS software currently used across these LOC facilities is called the Library Archival System (LAS). This software was originally designed and built in the early 1990’s by Generation Fifth Applications for Harvard University and various versions have been implemented at the LOC.

LAS was built using the Progress RDBMS (now OpenEdge), a product of Progress Software Corporation. The core application was written in the OpenEdge Advanced Business Language and run on a Linux platform. The interfaces for LAS are deployed through text-based menus and commands, using a secure shell connection to the institution’s instance of the application.

The contractor shall provide the following:

1. Install the latest compatible version of Progress OpenEdge software to upgrade the Library from the currently installed version, which is 11.3.3.


2. Provide maintenance, technical support, software updates, and troubleshooting for the Library Archival System.