From: "Julia M. Gelfand" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2012 17:28:08 -0700

Colleagues,

It may be of interest that the University of California has posted a
system-wide Request for Information (RFI) for Point of Care products.

If you examine the RFI, many of the issues for these very expensive
point of care products illustrate how unsustainable these products are
for the medical library community, and it is perceived that this
effort is related to basic practices in scholarly communications and
licensing issues.  Thus, the University of California's libraries,
medical schools & centers are seeking justifications and additional
information to establish a more transparent process in negotiating
these products.  By sharing the RFI, it is more for a point of
information to those institutions that are also concerned about these
spiraling costs for these point-of-care tools.  Medical centers&
hospitals do a routine RFI before a RFP to vet expensive products,
instruments and equipment, and these resources certainly qualify at
the annual unit and total subscription costs for the individual
campuses and entire University system.  We are informing library and
publishing groups to post this news and to invite those who are
interested to review the RFI for this process.

Thanks for your consideration.

The RFI can be found at:
http://www.ucop.edu/purchserv/rfp/welcome.html . It is listed as UC
Point of Care Products.

Julia Gelfand
Applied Sciences & Engineering Librarian
University of California, Irvine Libraries
[log in to unmask]