The Fleet Library at Rhode Island School of Design seek bids for development of a database and online resource surrounding the description and exploration of design-centered materials. In concert with The Frances Loeb Library at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, the two libraries will act in concert to provide a detailed schema of database fields and functionality.

Some highlights:

• The database will be highly relational to allow the construction of authority tables and their use across multiple records.
• The database will be constructed using an established set of fields.
• The database will be hosted in one location but available simultaneously to multiple agents from both libraries and to an expanded number of library users; the online version will be freely open.

Ability to support future developments:

• The database and online resource will allow for links to other online sources as well as media assets such as PDF documents and multimedia files.
• The online resource will allow the addition of the addition of web application programming interfaces (API) contributions, geo-spatial data and mapping, integration of web-based 3D modeling and visualization, etc.
• The online resource will allow for capture of moderated user-contributed tags and comments.

Interested developers should contact RISD Visual + Material Resource Librarian Mark Pompelia at mpompeli@risd.edu