From: Pepe, Richard (FIES) Sent: 29 April 2009 12:35 To: ASFA-Board-L Subject: draft List-of-Options for improving ASFA database Dear ASFA Partners, A few weeks ago the FAO ASFA Secretariat met with the ASFA Publisher (ProQuest) to discuss some issues regarding the maintenance, management and development of the ASFA system. Such Meetings between FAO and the ASFA Publisher are seen as a way of "keeping" up to date on changes at the Publisher and as a way to try and keep things moving between ASFA Board Meetings etc. Such meetings will become more routine in the future. Participating in the above mentioned Meeting for FAO was R.Grainger and R.Pepe. The ProQuest participants were: Craig Emerson, Vice President, Editorial Operations; Vicki Soto, Managing Editor; Gerry Sawchuck Publisher/Product Manager Natural Sciences; Mark Hyer, Secondary Publishing; Laura Griesbauer, Supervising Editor, Aquatic/Meteorological Sciences; Jim McGinty, Vice Chairman). Also present at the meeting were Ian Pettman (FBA, UK) and Anthony Thompson (NAFO, Canada). Note, the invitation of I. Pettman and A. Thompson to this Meeting with the Publisher should not to be interpreted as the establishment of an ASFA executive or guiding committee or as a substitute for the ASFA Advisory Board Meetings. A. Thompson was invited to the Meeting because he is both a researcher and a primary publisher. Ian Pettman was invited because he is a librarian, but mainly because of his work with the Thesaurus and Geographic Authority list which will figure prominently in making ASFA more unique in its services (i.e. more user search friendly and responsive). The above mentioned Meeting included preliminary discussion (a sort of brainstorming) regarding the ways and means of increasing the uniqueness/utility of the ASFA database . The backdrop or reason for such discussions was: 1) the ever increasing number of competing information sources - both "for pay" (Scopus, Web-of-Science, Ebsco) and "for free" (Google Scholar) now available via Internet, and 2) the current world financial crisis which is accelerating the threat that the "free" information services pose to the "pay for" information services, like ASFA. Attached are the highlights or outcome of our Meeting. Regards, Richard Pepe Fishery Information Officer (Editor-in-Chief ASFA) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Fisheries and Aquaculture Department Fisheries and Aquaculture Economics and Policy Division (FIE) Fisheries and Aquaculture Information and Statistics Service (FIES) Via delle Terme di Caracalla 00153, Rome, Italy Telephone: +(39) 0657051 (operator) Telephone: +(39) 06570 56380(direct) Fax number: +(39) 06570 52476 E-mail: richard.pepe@fao.org (FAO) http://www.fao.org / (Fisheries Department) http://www.fao.org/fi Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA) http://www.fao.org/fi/asfa/asfa.asp text of attachment: Highlights of 2 day Meeting (i.e. proposed solutions drafted by ProQuest based on our discussions) Premise: The major comparative advantage of ASFA is its coverage of the grey literature and this is one of the main reasons for ASFA's success and survival among the many other competing information products available on the web. Certainly, the current or present success of ASFA is not an automatic guarantee that ASFA will remain a success in the future. The future success of ASFA will depend on setting a future direction for ASFA which will increase its comparative advantage. To increase ASFA's comparative advantage, we (the ASFA Partners) should take measures: • to increase "timeliness" (this is of paramount importance, and needless to say there is considerable room for Partners to improve upon the timeliness of ASFA. The solutions listed below to increase timeliness will indirectly also lead to increases in the coverage of the grey literature and in the digitization of full text), • to increase coverage and especially that of the grey literature, (the input from the ASFA Partners is often sporadic, zero or of lower volume than expected), • to increase full-text linking (users everywhere highly appreciate (if not expect) full-text links), and • to improve services (eg. search interfaces and tools etc.). At this point, if we all accept the above Premise, THEN the question is: “HOW do we increase ASFA’s comparative advantage?” Some of the “Solutions” that came out of our Meeting are listed below: SOME SOLUTIONS TO INCREASE THE TIMELINESS OF ASFA INPUT: (note, these are draft solutions up for Partners' discussion and eventual approval) 1. Introduction into the ASFA input process of a submission deadline of 4 weeks (this is still only a suggested deadline). That is , journal articles must be indexed, abstracted, and sent to the Publisher within 4 weeks of receipt of the journal by the input centre. (This deadline would not pertain to "old" input being prepared under ASFA Trust-Fund projects.) Note, a "submission deadline" would be a new requirement for ASFA Partners to take into consideration in the prepratation of their ASFA input, and it will certainly be a challenge to meet such a goal for Partners. Some Partners will be able improve timeliness quickly and conform to this deadline. Others may take longer. Some partners may find they cannot meet the “submission deadline”. For those Partners, some or all of the options listed below can be adopted: 1. Submission of ASFA records to ProQuest in a tagged-text format: Some Partners have indicated that preparing and submitting their ASFA records as tagged text files rather than using the www-ASFA-ISIS would be much quicker for them. In essence, a tagged-text format is a simple text file produced in any text editor (e.g. MS Word) in which citation etc. information is preceded with a code or ‘tag’. Note, however, that inputters using the tagged text option would not have the authority-file tools (pick-lists) and verification warning message now available in the www-ASFA-ISIS software. 2. Submission of ASFA records to ProQuest without the journal allocation codes, the subject category codes or the indexing terms: With this option, Partners would prepare the base ASFA record as usual (citation+abstract) but would not include in the record any of the indexing information. Only the base records would be submitted to ProQuest. It would be ProQuest’s responsibility to assign the indexing information to the records via automatic indexing (e.g. journal allocation codes, subjetc category codes and the subject, taxonomic and geographic descriptors). The records (input) could be submitted using the www-ISIS-ASFA software or in the tagged-text format described above in item 1. This option would not impact (decrease in number) any of the ASFA entitlements that the ASFA Partner is currently receiving. 3. Transfer of Journal (serial) Monitoring Responsibility to ProQuest: ProQuest does not desire to take on the monitoring responsibility for the journals that are currently input by other Partners. Nonetheless, some input centres may not be able to process all of their journals in a timely way. At an ASFA Partner’s request, therefore, ProQuest may be able to assume the monitoring responsibility for a portion of the journals monitored by that Partner. In some cases, the Partner would be able to provide ProQuest with the publication if ProQuest cannot obtain it directly. 4. Transfer of Non-journal Monitoring Responsibility to ProQuest: If non-serial publications are identified, but the ASFA Partner is unable to process them, the Partner can provide the publication(s) to ProQuest for further processing. Ideally, the Partner would scan the publication or appropriate sections and transmit the scanned file to ProQuest. It is possible that shipping the hardcopy might be feasible in some cases. In some cases, ProQuest may be able to access the content directly via Internet. 5. Submission of Open Access Publications to ProQuest: All publications that can be designated “Open Access” should be made available to users of the ASFA database via links from the ASFA records. These publications can be deposited within the Aquatic Commons (http://aquacomm.fcla.edu/) and/or Oceandocs (http://iodeweb1.vliz.be/odin/) repositories. If the ASFA Partner, itself, is not able to deposit the publications in a repository, the publications could be sent to ProQuest who may then host the full-text and/or upload the content to the repositories. In conclusion, There are many details to be discussed regarding all the above options, but we first need to agree that: (1) production of the ASFA database can be improved, (2) a “submission deadline” is a reasonable implementation to improve timeliness, and (3) flexibility with the current indexing process should be considered. All the options are open for discussion, and there may be other options that should be added to the list. There are various limitations inherent in the options listed above, and of course, there will be many details to be reviewed. There may be long-term impacts on indexing quality and on the ASFA trust fund. Some solutions may work for some Partners but not all. Regardless of the eventual outcome, it would be a useful exercise to test some of the options with a few pilot projects. Regards, Richard Pepe, FAO, 23/April 2009