FAO Fisheries Department ASFA ADVISORY BOARD MEETING 2000

ASFA ADVISORY BOARD MEETING

NIO/NICMAS, GOA, INDIA, 19-22 September 2000

SUMMARY REPORT
(Table of Contents/Agenda)

1. OPENING OF THE MEETING

2.ADMINISTRATIVE ARRANGEMENTS

3. ELECTION OF CHAIRPERSON AND RAPPORTEURS

4.ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA
5.ADOPTION OF THE SUMMARY REPORT OF THE 1999 ASFA ADVISORY BOARD MEETING
5.1 Matters Arising from the last (1999) ASFA Advisory Board Meeting

6.STATUS OF ASFA PARTNERSHIP
6.1 Report on Intersessional Activities of the ASFA Partners

6.2 New and Potential ASFA Partners

6.3 Co-operation with AGRIS

6.4 ASFA Partnership Agreement

6.5 ASFA Publishing Agreement

7. ASFA SCOPE, COVERAGE, MONITORING AND TIMELINESS
7.1 Presentation by Dr Kirchner

7.2 Studies on Coverage of Fisheries Economics and Fisheries Technology

7.3 Coverage of ICES Conference Papers

7.4 List of Book Publishers

7.5 Timeliness

8. ASFA PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
8.1 Quality of Outputs

8.2 New Outputs and Services

8.3 Public Relations Activities and Marketing

8.4 Partner Entitlements

8.5 Increasing Distribution of ASFA Information Products and Services

9. PROGRESS WITH MACHINE READABLE INPUT
9.1 ASFISIS
9.2 WWW-ISIS
10.REPORT ON ASFA TRAINING ACTIVITIES

11. STATUS OF ASFIS REFERENCE SERIES PUBLICATIONS

11.1 ASFIS-1, Serials Monitored for the ASFIS Bibliographic Database

11.2 ASFIS-2, Subject Categories and Scope Descriptions

11.3 ASFIS-3, Guidelines for Bibliographic Description

11.4 ASFIS-4, Guidelines for Abstracting

11.5 ASFIS-5, Guidelines for Indexing

11.6 ASFIS-6, Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Thesaurus

11.7 ASFIS-7, Geographic Authority List

11.8 ASFIS-8, Taxonomic Authority List

11.9 ASFIS-9, Database User Guide

11.10 ASFIS-10, Authority List for Corporate Names

11.11 ASFIS-11, Magnetic Tape Specifications and Record Format

12. EXPANDED LANGUAGE CAPABILITY IN ASFA

13. ASFA TRUST FUND

13.1 Status of the ASFA Trust Fund

13.2 New Proposals

13.3 Proposals in Progress, Completed or Pending Further Discussion

14.OTHER BUSINESS

15. PLACE AND DATE OF NEXT MEETING

ANNEXES

(Only Annexes 1, 43 are included)

1. List of Participants

1a Abbreviations

2. Agenda

3. FAO Report (ASFA/2000/3)

4. IOC Report (ASFA/2000/4)

5. UN/DOALOS Report (ASFA/2000/5)

6. Argentina (INIDEP) Report (ASFA/2000/13)

7. Australia (CSIRO) Report (ASFA/2000/14)

8. Canada (Fisheries and Oceans) Report (ASFA/2000/16)

9. Chile (IFOP) Report (ASFA/2000/17)

10. China, People's Republic (NMDIS) Report (ASFA/2000/18)

11. Cuba (CIP) Report (ASFA/2000/20)

12. Estonia (EMI) Report (ASFA/2000/21)

13. France (IFREMER) Report (ASFA/2000/22)

14. Germany (BF) Report (ASFA/2000/23)

15. Greece (NCMR) Report (ASFA/2000/24)

16. ICES Report (ASFA/2000/9)

17. ICLARM Report (ASFA/2000/10)

18. India (NIO/NICMAS) Report (ASFA/2000/25)

19. Japan (JFRCA) Report (ASFA/2000/27)

20. Kenya (KMFRI) Report (ASFA/2000/28)

21. Korea (KORDI) Report(ASFA/2000/29)

22. Norway (IMR) Report (ASFA/2000/33)

23. PIMRIS Report (ASFA/2000/12)

24. Poland (SFI) Report (ASFA/2000/35)

25. Russia (VNIRO) Report (ASFA/2000/37)

26. Spain (IEO) Report (ASFA/2000/38)

27. Sweden (IMR) Report (ASFA/2000/39)

28. Ukraine (YugNIRO) Report (ASFA/2000/41)

29. United Kingdom (PML) Report (ASFA/2000/42)

30. USA (NOAA) Report (ASFA/2000/43)

31. Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) Report (ASFA/2000/44)

32. NISC Report to the ASFA Board September 2000 (ASFA/2000/53)

33. Publishing Agreement between FAO and CSA (paragraphs 5, 6 and Exhibit F)

34. ASFA Information Products and Services (incl. 120009 prices) (ASFA/2000/46)

35. Second Report on the Project to Distribute ASFA on CD-ROM to LIFDC's in Africa

36 ASFA Trust Fund Status (ASFA/2000/49)

37. CSA Calculation of Royalty Payment (ASFA/2000/48)

38. Support to FAO ASFA Secretariat (ASFA/2000/3a)

39. Workshops for familiarization (training) in the ASFA input methodology (ASFA/2000/3b)

40. Support to development of a Web based interface to ASFISIS(ASFA/2000/3c)

41. Trust Fund Proposal (BF and NIO)

42. Increasing the Coverage of ASFA Partners (New Partners)

43. Decisions (suggestions) and Actions Agreed by Participants
1. OPENING OF THE MEETING

The annual Meeting of the Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA) Advisory Board was hosted by the National Information Centre for Marine Sciences (NICMAS), National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) located in Dona Paula 403 004 Goa, India, during 19-22 September 2000.

The Meeting was attended by 25 participants from: 13 National ASFA Partners, 1 Collaborating ASFA Partner, 2 UN Partners, 1 International ASFA Partner, the ASFA Publishing Partner, and 1 observer. The names and addresses are listed in Annex-1 (the abbreviations used in the Report are listed in Annex-1a).

The Deputy Director of NIO, Dr Satish Shetye, a physical oceanographer and Chairman of the Library Committee, opened the Meeting on behalf of Dr Desa, Director of NIO. He welcomed the participants to NIO and Goa. He said that he was a user of ASFA and admired it, because it both provided access to information produced in developing countries and facilitated access by developing countries to this information. He complimented Dr Tapaswi for his efforts in promoting ASFA in NIO.

Dr Shetye wished the Board a successful Meeting.
2. ADMINISTRATIVE ARRANGEMENTS

Dr M. Tapaswi (NIO/NICMAS) presented this Agenda Item. For reasons beyond the control of the NIO meeting organizers, the venue of the Meeting was moved from NIO to the nearby International Centre, Goa.
3. ELECTION OF CHAIRPERSON AND RAPPORTEURS

Ms H. Cameron (DFO) was elected Chairperson of the Board Meeting and Dr W. Kirchner (BF) co-Chairperson. Dr R. Pepe (FAO) was appointed Rapporteur and Ms S. Goulala (NCMR) as assistant Rapporteur.
4.ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA

The Agenda adopted by the Board is attached as Annex-2, with the following additions:

6.14 Structure of Partners Reports and Final Meeting Report.

8.0 Role of Information Systems in Scientific Publishing

13.3 Proposals in progress completed or pending further discussion

The demonstration of CODREF by Dr V. Oresland (IMR) was moved to after Meeting hours and replaced with discussion under item 8.2 on the topic "copyright problems related to publishing ASFA references with some changes on the Internet".
5. ADOPTION OF THE SUMMARY REPORT OF THE 1999 ASFA ADVISORY BOARD MEETING

The Report of the 1999 ASFA Advisory Board Meeting (NOAA, USA) was adopted by the Board and thanks were extended to the Rapporteurs.
5.1 Matters Arising from the last (1999) ASFA Advisory Board Meeting

The Chair introduced this Agenda item referring to document (ASFA/2000/2) "Decisions and Actions agreed by the Participants at the last (1999) ASFA Advisory Board Meeting".

The follow-up taken by Partners on last year's "action items" are reported under the appropriate Agenda items.
6. STATUS OF ASFA PARTNERSHIP

6.1 Report on Inter-sessional Activities of the ASFA Partners

Each ASFA Partner presented a summary report of its inter-sessional activities. For the reports of Partners not attending the Meeting, the FAO ASFA Secretariat summarized the major points or concerns contained in their Reports. In most cases, only the highlights, comments and discussions regarding the reports are recorded below as the full text of the Reports can be consulted in the Annexes.
6.1.1 United Nations Co-sponsors

6.1.1.1 FAO Report (Annex-3) Dr Grainger presented the ASFA Secretariat's Report. He announced the upgrading of the ASFA Editor-in-Chief, and the hiring of Ms Helen Wibley as a full time FAO/ASFA staff member. He briefly mentioned the main accomplishments of the FAO ASFA Secretariat during the inter-sessional period which included: the finalization and signing of the Publishing Agreement between CSA and FAO, the recruitment of 6 new Partners, numerous training sessions, initiation of a follow-up development of the successor to DOS ASFISIS and the actual start up of the project to increase the availability of the ASFA information products to Low Income Food Deficit Countries (LIFDC). He also mentioned the FAO strategy to increase coverage and requested Partners to provide their comments and endorsement.

Mr G. Rao signalled the following typographical error in the FAO Report regarding PIMRIS (in item 4.2.5 the phrase "5000 records" should read "500 records", i.e., the correct phrase is: "The ASFA Trust Fund project (already approved by the Board) to input into ASFA the approximately 500 records in the PIMRIS regional database is still pending.)" .

Given the comprehensiveness of the FAO Report, the Board suggested that it be reviewed at the end of the Meeting to ascertain if any important issues may have been missed during the discussions.

6.1.1.2 IOC Report (Annex-4) Mr Odido (IOC/IODE Consultant) presented the IOC Report. He described IOC's measures to improve completeness and timeliness and its online publication database system (IOCPUB). He also reported on the 4 year project for developing an Ocean Data and Information Network in Africa (ODINAFRICA), which includes considerable capacity building for data and information managers. The project will also help identify institutions to participate in the ASFA initiative to distribute free ASFA CD-ROMs to LIFDC countries in Africa.

6.1.1.3 UN/DOALOS Report (not present, Report Annex-5). The ASFA Secretariat reported FAO: the UN's input of 243 records during the inter-sessional period, the increased monitoring responsibility taken on (five new titles) and its desire to see a Windows replacement for the DOS based ASFISIS interface.

6.1.1.4 UNEP - (not present, no Report submitted)

Regarding the action item contained in 1999 ASFA Board Meeting Report:

"1. FAO agreed to follow up on the status of UNEP's participation in ASFA."

The ASFA Secretariat reported that UNEP's active participation in ASFA came to a halt in 1998 and various attempts to re-establish contacts were not successful due to a major re-organization and turn over of staff. However finally in March 2000, FAO received a positive sign of UNEP's interest and intent to re-engage in ASFA. Under the new Organization structure, a new Division of Environmental Conventions was formed and the staff will be working exclusively on oceans issues which the Assistant Director of the New Divisions envisages to include ASFA.
6.1.2 ASFA Partners

6.1.2.1 Argentina (INIDEP) (not present, Report Annex-6) The ASFA Secretariat congratulated Ms Margarita De Wild for her long time support to the ASFA system in Argentina and wished her a happy and healthy retirement. Regarding the strategy to increase coverage of ASFA, INIDEP offered to host an eventual ASFA training course. The Argentine ASFA input network is due to recruit another collaborating centre. Users of the INIDEP SDI service have mentioned the slow coverage of ASFA

6.1.2.2 Australia (CSIRO) (not present, Report Annex-7). The ASFA Secretariat reported complaints from CSIRO's user community regarding slow coverage, and the desire of CSIRO to see a windows based input interface.

6.1.2.3 Bulgaria (MAFAR) (not yet ASFA operational)

6.1.2.4 Canada (NRC) (Annex-8) Ms Cameron presented the DFO Report. She reported the retirement of Ms Marlene Wilbur who was responsible for the successful operation of the Canadian ASFA input for 19 years. The ASFA Board thanked her for her efforts and also wished her a happy and healthy retirement. The Canadian activities on the Thesaurus are discussed under Agenda item 11.

6.1.2.5 Chile (IFOP) (not present, Report Annex-9). The ASFA Secretariat mentioned IFOP's efforts to create a sub-national network of ASFA collaborating centres and the need for training. IFOP supported Mr Cort's (FAO) idea to realize a training course in Latin America and offered to host the event.

6.1.2.6 China (NMDIS) (Annex-10) Mr Yang Ying presented the NMDIS Report, and highlighted the inter-sessional activities which included: a Trust Fund project underway to add abstracts to the 1975-77 ASFA records, the publication of the Directory of Chinese Marine and Fisheries Institutions and Scientists and the translation of the ASFA Thesaurus into Chinese (some a copies were tabled).

6.1.2.7 Cote d'Ivoire (not yet ASFA operational)

6.1.2.8 Cuba (CIP) (not present, Report Annex-11) The ASFA Secretariat reported FAO CIP's offer to host the next ASFA Advisory Board Meeting which was not mentioned in the Report, but rather in the covering letter which accompanied it. See Agenda item 15.

6.1.2.9 Estonia (EMI) (Annex-12) - Ms Kalenchits presented the Report for EMI which contained a useful section on trends regarding the kinds and types of records input.

6.1.2.10 France (IFREMER) (Annex-13) Ms Prod'homme presented the IFREMER Report. Numerous important issues were noted for further discussion under the appropriate Agenda item: abbreviated verses full serial titles, inclusion of author affiliation for all authors of a publication, "cover to cover" coverage, delays, missing data (see Agenda item-8). Ms Prod'homme also reiterated IFREMER's offer to host the next ASFA Board Meeting.

The Board again congratulated Ms Prod'homme for her detailed Report and her numerous efforts both to promote and to publicise ASFA in France.

6.1.2.11 Germany (BF) (Annex-14) Dr Kirchner presented the BF Report. He reported that soon two highly experienced and esteemed staff members (Anita Ritter and Ulrich Brull) will be retiring. To cope with the loss of input production, BF shall try to divide the workload by establishing a small network of 3 or 4 collaborating ASFA Centres. Numerous other issues regarding monitoring, timeliness and quality were noted for further discussion under the appropriate Agenda items. The small BF royalty payment into the ASFA Trust Fund was explained as due to the limited use by foreign users of the ASFA database on DIMDI.

Dr Kirchner gave a detailed description of the status and working phases of the ASFA Trust Fund project to "Clean the Entire ASFA Database" (i.e., mostly of duplicate records and misplaced descriptors). The Board recommended not to exclude from the clean up the 1975-77 files which are being processed for the addition of abstracts by China, as the possibilities of introducing some indexing inconsistencies were few and could most likely be avoided.

Dr Kircher presented a list of 13 proposals for the future of ASFA based on improving and insuring the quality of the ASFA database which he said should, in his opinion, have priority over increasing the coverage.

Ms Kalenschits (EMI), referring to the Project to clean the ASFA database of duplicate records, pointed out the need for caution as some records which may at first glance appear to be duplicates are really not as they are published in different journals.

6.1.2.12 Greece (NCMR) (Annex-15) Ms Goulala, presented the NCMR Report. She reported the two year leave of absence of one of her key input staff, Lia Charou, and the problem of the limited coverage of books in ASFA. She suggested that Partners follow up the commercial Publishers in their countries with requests for book lists and eventual copies of the books for input into ASFA. She also suggested that a Partner may also consider donating books to another Partner who is willing to prepare the input for them.

6.1.2.13 ICES (not present, Report Annex-16) The ASFA Secretariat reported the decrease in ICES input due to temporary lack of staff and the problem of how to deal with the ICES CM papers when BF ceases to monitor them. See Agenda item 7.3.

6.1.2.14 ICLARM (not present, Report Annex-17) The ASFA Secretariat reported that ASFA is the most popular database used by ICLARM researchers and clients.

6.1.2.15 IUCN - (not present, Report submitted as e-mail text) The ASFA Secretariat reported that the recent reduction in the IUCN input was caused by the participation of the library in a complex, time consuming project and the organization of the up coming triennial IUCN General Assembly. In any case, IUCN reiterates its continued interest in participating in ASFA.

6.1.2.16 India (NIO/NICMAS) (Annex-18) Dr Tapaswi presented the NIO Report. He described briefly the Institute and its Library and mentioned that the Library had been recognized as one of the sectorial Information Centres of NISSAT (National Information System for Science and Technology) in the field of marine science as NICMAS (National Information Centre for Marine Sciences). He also mentioned that the ASFA Trust Fund project to computerize the 1974 ASFA printed journal was at the proof reading stage and might be completed by December 2000 (see Agenda item 13.3.7).

Problems raised included CD-ROM timeliness and the need for browser based search facility at NIO for LAN searching of ASFA.

6.1.2.17 Italy (SIBM) (not present, no Report, just became ASFA operational)

6.1.2.18 Japan (JFRCA) (not present, Report Annex-19) The ASFA Secretariat reported JFRCA's production of a selective bibliography and the holding of a technical workshop.

6.1.2.19 Kenya (KMFRI) (Annex-20) Mr J. Macharia presented the KMFRI Report. He mentioned the problem of few journals in the Region. The Trust Fund Proposal to input/key 1973 ASFA journals into machine readable format is discussed under Agenda item13.2.. Mr Macharia presented an offer by KMFRI to host the ASFA Board Meeting in 2002 (see Agenda item-15).

6.1.2.20 Korea (KORDI) (Annex-21) Mr Han presented the KORDI Report. He reported that 200 preliminary records had been prepared and that an indexer biologist had been hired to take care of the indexing aspects of the input preparation.

6.1.2.21 Lithuania (Ichthyobank) (not present, no Report).

6.1.2.22 Mexico (DGB) - (not present, no Report).

6.1.2.23 Morocco (INRH) (not yet ASFA operational)

6.1.2.24 Norway (IMR) (Annex-22) Ms Skotheim presented the IMR Report and conveyed Mr Bjoerke's greetings as he is now retired. She reported that IMR has been an input centre since 1983 and contracting the input preparation to CSA since 1995. However, recently the number of records have exhausted the available funds thereby preventing any further increases in the IMR input. The questions of serial title abbreviation, extended access to ASFA on internet for travelling scientists, cleaning of inconsistently spelled titles and lack of ICES CM papers were mentioned and are discussed under Agenda items 7 and 8.

Regarding extended access to ASFA on internet for travelling scientists, Dr C. Emerson (CSA) stated that username and Password access were possible instead of IP access, but that this had to be considered on a case by case bases by CSA in order to avoid possible adverse commercial repercussions.

6.1.2.25 Peru (IMARPE) (not yet ASFA operational)

6.1.2.26 PIMRIS (Annex-23) Mr Rao presented the report for PIMRIS. He reported that the first set of ASFA records had been sent to FAO and that the Trust Fund project to input the existing PIMRIS database into ASFA format would begin shortly. See Agenda item 13.3.6.

6.1.2.27 Poland (SFI) (not present, Report Annex-24) The ASFA Secretariat reported SFI's significant input effort and production during the inter-sessional period, but the recent loss of 2 staff members has caused some problems.

6.1.2.28 Portugal (IPIMAR) - (not present, no Report submitted).

6.1.2.29 Russia (VNIRO) (Annex-25) Dr Zhavoronkov reported that the Russian input had decreased due to fewer publications received.

The Board joined Dr Kirchner's welcome of the Russian Board member to the Meeting after a long absence.

6.1.2.30 Spain (IEO) (not present, Report Annex-26). The ASFA Secretariat reported IEO's desire to see a Windows based interface to the ASFA input software and the reported lack of coverage of commercial books in the database.

6.1.2.31 Sweden (IMR) (Annex-27) Dr Oresland presented the IMR Report. He reported a decrease in Swedish publications and the desire for a Windows based interface to ASFISIS which is treated under item 9.2. Ideas for development and improvement of ASFA are discussed under Agenda item-8.2.

6.1.2.32 Tunisia (INSTM) (not yet ASFA operational)

6.1.2.33 Ukraine (YugNIRO) (Annex-28) Dr Romanov presented the YugNIRO Report. He reported the recruitment of 1 new collaborating centre, and the translation into Russian of the 4 ASFIS Reference Series publications (tabled at Meeting). The Trust Fund proposal will be discussed under Agenda item 13.2.

The Board complimented Dr Romanov on the fine work with the ASFIS Reference Series.

6.1.2.34 United Kingdom (PML) (not present, Report Annex-29) The ASFA Secretariat reported PML's complaints regarding lack of timeliness, and gaps in coverage. PML also lacks sufficient staff to cover all of the grey literature in UK.

6.1.2.35 USA (NOAA) (not present, Report Annex-30) The ASFA Secretariat mentioned the large number of ASFA searches carried out by NOAA staff during the inter-sessional period (150,000) and that the NOAA library has been designated as the centre for aquaculture information for the US Department of Commerce.

6.1.2.36 ASFA PUBLISHER (CSA) (Annex-31) Dr Emerson presented the CSA Report. He mentioned Ms Angela Hitti's retirement at the beginning of the year and the Board expressed their deep gratitude for all the effort that she has put into the ASFA system over the years and wished her a happy and healthy retirement.

He reported recent changes in staff and responsibilities at CSA, and therefore explained who Partners should now alert when sending ASFA input to CSA. Regardless of the media that Partners send their input to CSA (e-mail attachment, FTP, or on diskette) they MUST always alert CSA by sending an e-mail to the following three CSA staff: 1)Viki Soto, Aquatic Sciences Supervisor, at [email protected], 2) Craig Emerson, Director of Editorial Operations, at [email protected] and 3) Jain Hemant, computer specialist, at [email protected]).

Regarding missing records and corrections of errors in existing records, he reported that the process had been streamlined with the loading of easily accessible historical database files. CSA agreed to circulate to Partners a format for submitting requests for the correction of records.

He also reported: problems in acquiring primary material from Publishers, inclusion of non English abstracts in ASFA (highly appreciated by CSA customers), expanded language capabilities (e.g., multi-lingual menus and thesauri), the ASFA Trust Fund (see Agenda item-13) and new features for the IDS..

Dr Emerson also mentioned that CSA maintained a parallel monitoring list. The discussions have been move to Agenda item 11.1.

6.1.3 Others

6.1.3.1 NISC (Annex-32) Ms McPhail presented a Report for NISC (ASFA/2000/53) with diagrams depicting the percentage contribution of the ASFA database to the NISC, ABFR and MOFR CD-ROMs. She also mentioned the various publicity carried out regarding the NISC products.
6.1.4 Structure of Partner's Reports and Final Meeting Report

At the last Board Meeting, the Board agreed that Reports should be kept to 1 or 2 pages (except for ASFA Secretariat and Partners with many sub-centres and activities to Report), and that the Reports should contain the following information when relevant:

complete institute name and address information,

Board Member and input staff names,

input statistics,

distribution list for complimentary ASFA entitlements,

usefulness of ASFA products to your users (e.g. some user feed back on ASFA products),

changes to monitoring list information (e.g., titles added, deleted, modified),

problems, and

ideas for development of and improvements to ASFA, including trust fund proposals.

The Board agreed that this structure was useful and should be continued.

The inclusion of trends, as in the Estonian Report (ASFA/2000/21), was mentioned as desirable but not mandatory.

Partners are requested to expand on the " Usefulness" section of their Reports perhaps through small local surveys of user satisfaction.

CSA agreed to try and produce usage statistics (i.e., how many searches have been done on a particular server)

Regarding the ASFA Board Meeting Reports, the Board agreed that the current format and content should be continued.

Further standardization of the Reports would require Partners using the same type size (10pt) and the same font (one that is sans serif, for example arial) and 12 point spacing between lines.

The FAO agreed to send out a reminder before the next Board Meeting regarding the format to use for the Report.
6.2 New and Potential ASFA Partners

6.2.1. Admission of New Partners

The Board welcomed the six new ASFA Partners: ADRIAMED, Cote d'Ivoire, ICCAT, Korea, Peru and Tunisia into the ASFA Partnership. See FAO Report (ASFA/2000/45) for full names of Institutes

Four of the above Partners have been trained in the ASFA input methodology and two (ADRIAMED and Korea are operative (i.e. submitting input). See Annex-6 of FAO Report for names and affiliations of trainees.

The ASFA Secretariat agreed to write to each Partner officially communicating their acceptance into the Partnership by the ASFA Advisory Board, but also reminding them that entitlements and listing in the title pages of the journals will only commence with the submission of input for inclusion in the ASFA database.
6.2.2. Consideration of Potential Partners

Regarding the follow-up action items (5) and (6) below, taken from the "Action List" contained in 1999 Board Meeting Report:
"(5) Regarding the identification of a potential Partner in Brazil, NOAA would continue its efforts.(pg.6). "

NOAA was not present at Meeting to reply.

The ASFA Secretariat reported that Mr Cort (FAO) recently visited Latin America (Chile, Argentina) and has requested assistance to identify a potential ASFA Partner in Brazil.
"(6) Regarding the possible participation in ASFA of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) and the paper presented by PIMRIS. FAO agreed to follow up."

The ASFA Secretariat reported that detailed communications were carried out with NIWA, but in the end they could not at the moment undertake the financial commitment necessary to participate (i.e., prepare input).

Mr. Rao agreed to follow up again on a potential ASFA Partner in New Zealand.

Regarding the follow-up action item (9) taken from the "Action List" contained in 1999 Board Meeting Report:

"(9) The Board agreed on the need for a strategy to increase the coverage of ASFA ... . FAO and IOC agreed to work on such a strategy.

The ASFA Secretariat introduced this follow-up action by tabling (ASFA/2000/3d) " Increasing the Coverage of ASFA (New Partners)". See Annex-42).

In brief the strategy articulates around:

the project to distribute ASFA CD-ROMs to Institutes in Low Income Food Deficit Countries (LIFDC) in Africa (and the ASFA Internet access to institutes world-wide),

the recruitment and training of Partners with regional responsibilities like ADRIAMED, and SIPAM and the RECOSCIX Regional focal points in Kenya and Cote d'Ivoire (Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) and Centre de Recherches Oceanologiques (CRO) respectively), and

the recruitment of ASFA Partners in countries where aquatic resource exploitation is of major importance (i.e., the major fishing nations such as Peru).

The Board agreed to endorse this strategy as the way forward.

In discussions that followed, the Board reiterated the principle that the carrier language of ASFA was English but that everything should be done to facilitate non-English speakers participation in ASFA and use of the ASFA information products (which could include translating the ASFIS Reference Series, and conducting ASFA courses in other languages), although recognising the need for the inputters preparing English abstracts to have reasonable English fluency.
6.3 Co-operation with AGRIS

In response to a query regarding the future of AGRIS, the ASFA Secretariat explained the current AGRIS initiative to decentralize the input processing and dissemination of information. Partners were requested to consult the AGRIS homepage for information regarding the AGRIS re-design.
6.4 ASFA Partnership Agreement

The ASFA Secretariat noted no changes to this Document.
6.5 ASFA Publishing Agreement

During the inter-sessional period, the FAO ASFA Secretariat and CSA incorporated into the Agreement the suggestions made at the last ASFA Advisory Board Meeting (see item 6.5 of the 1999 ASFA Board Meeting Report).
The Agreement was signed by FAO and CSA and came into effect 1 January 2000. It will expire 31 December 2003.

The sections of the Agreement dealing with Partners' entitlements "minimum" and "additional" ASFA entitlements and the terms of usage of such entitlements (Paragraph-5, Exhibit-F and also Paragraph-6, Charges and Royalty Payments) are reproduced in document (ASFA/2000/47). See Annex-33.

In brief, the renewed Publishing Agreement provides the ASFA Partners with:

increased "minimum entitlements" to the ASFA information products and services (see Paragraph-5 of Agreement which refers to the new entitlement providing all active Partners with one ASFA Internet Database Service subscription for multiple simultaneous access by the Partner organization/institution,

new "inflation proof" formulae for obtaining "additional entitlements" to the ASFA information products based on number of input produced by Partners (see Exhibit-F), and

increased royalties for the ASFA Trust Fund (increased from 5% to 10% in most cases) to be used for the further development of the ASFA system (see Paragraph-6 of Agreement).

Regarding Internet access to the ASFA database entitlement via the CSA IDS service, Mr Macharia enquired about the possibility of granting access to an affiliated organization not on the same campus. CSA replied that this was possible as long as the use was limited as stated in item 6.5 page 8 of the 1999 ASFA Advisory Board Meeting Report.
7. ASFA SCOPE, COVERAGE, MONITORING AND TIMELINESS

7. 1 Presentation by Dr Kirchner

Dr Kirchner introduced this Agenda item with a PowerPoint demonstration entitled " The role of international reference systems in scientific publishing". In this context, he mentioned: 1) the information market place, 2) Bibliometric studies, 3) new competitors, and 4) ideas to insure ASFA's future development.

Below are listed Dr Kirchner's ideas/suggestions to insure ASFA future development. The discussions are recorded below the item or in another agenda item:

1. establishment of a permanent ASFA systems development group (to monitor trends, keep up to date etc.),

Some Board members favoured the idea and others considered the Board already an adequate forum for such discussions.

The ASFA Secretariat suggested that " future strategies for development" should be added to the Agenda and papers could be contributed by consultants.

CSA agreed to add a new section to its annual report dealing with " future developments" .

2. focus of ASFA Trust fund projects first on quality improvement and then enlarged coverage,

CSA stated that its customers, although quality conscious, would prefer more records (information).

3. extending the Baltic Seaweb GIS system to ASFA,

No discussion followed this item although this tool was demonstrated to the Board in the past and met with approval.

4. input software that controls quality at the input stage,

The ASFA Secretariat reminded the Board that the current ASFISIS software already contained field and content validation and any new ASFA input software would retain and improve this facility.

5. software that automatically scans documents and inputs the information into the appropriate ASFA input fields,

6. a separate processing line (priority) for core journals,

7..splitting the input preparation (bibliographic description and abstracting and indexing) between collaborating centres in the same country,

8..making of contracts with Publishers to get bibliographic references

CSA reported that they already do this (they get about 10-15% of their records in machine readable format from the Publishers) and approximately another 20 % in machine readable format from the Web.

Regarding the high impact journals mentioned in Dr Kirchner's presentation all but one is monitored by CSA

9. studies to make ASFA fit XML field tagging (see item 8.1.1)

10. how to preserve accented characters (see item 8.1.1)

11. changes in field definition should not be made without considering consequences

12.changes in the system (e.g., new fields) should be made at intervals (e.g. every 4-5 years).
7.2 Studies on coverage of Fishery Economics and Fisheries Technology

The papers ASFA/2000/51 and 52 dealing with ASFA's coverage of Fisheries Economic and Fishing Technology literature were briefly reviewed. On the whole, the coverage of ASFA is good regarding the aquatic science journals, however coverage of aquatic science articles appearing in non aquatic science journals is not good.
The ASFA Secretariat reminded Partners of the need to put into action the suggestions or ideas to improve coverage contained in the two studies on coverage of Fisheries Economics and Fisheries Technology.

The ASFA Secretariat reminded the Board that similar surveys on specific subject areas in ASFA were all turning the same results (good coverage in the aquatic science journals and poor in the non aquatic science journals). This was understandable since the ASFA Partners would not be expected subscribe to non aquatic science journals just to capture the occasional article.

The solution suggested by FAO at past Board Meetings was to periodically scan the specialized non aquatic science databases for fisheries/aquaculture records on a semi-annual basis and then obtain the publications for input or negotiate the purchase of the abstracts.

CSA reported on a similar exercise with their sociology database, and 500 records were found in a first round search which were relevant to ASFA .

The Board agreed that papers dealing with "sociology" as well as economics and politics are important in today's integrated approach to resource management. Therefore CSA was encouraged to follow through with this initiative and to carry out a similar search in their recently acquired political science database.

CSA agreed to add the relevant records from the sociology database to ASFA using the ASFA indexing terms.

Regarding follow-up action item (22) from 1999 ASFA Board Meeting

"(22) Regarding the discrepancies (i.e. missing records) reported by IFREMER between the ASFA CD-ROM and the ASFA tapes for the years 1992 and 1994, CSA did not know the reason for the discrepancy. CSA agreed to investigate the matter and when possible to rectify the matter when the tapes were reloaded and the CD-ROM was remastered.)"

Neither CSA or IFREMER had the opportunity to check if the missing records were now appearing on the CD-ROM.
7.3 Coverage of ICES Conference Papers

ICES has expressed concern, because BF will, in the near future, not be able to continue its monitoring of the ICES CM papers (about 300-400 per year).

The Board noted the concern of ICES. The non inclusion of this material in ASFA would be a great disservice to the world's scientific community, therefore the Board urges ICES to find a solution.

FAO agreed to communicate the Board's feelings on this matter to ICES.
7.4 List of Book Publishers

BF suggested the compilation of a list of book publishers (commercial, academic etc.) which regularly publish titles within the subject scope of ASFA. This would serve as a check that the main publishers are being monitored.

FAO agreed to investigate maintaining the list of publishers for each Partner country.

The Board agreed that Partners will send FAO the names of such Publishers.
7.5 Timeliness

CSA reminds Partners that it is better to send their input to CSA in small batches (e.g. 50 -100 records) at short intervals (e.g. every month) rather than one or two big batches per year.
8. ASFA PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

8.1 Quality of Outputs

8.1.1 ASFA Journals, CD-ROM and Database (Annex-34 contains year 2000 prices)

Regarding the follow-up action item (24) from the 1999 ASFA Board Meeting

"(24) BF mentioned dissatisfaction with the SilverPlatter marketing in Germany. CSA agreed to follow up on this complaint."

BF has received no further complaints, but it is still somewhat dissatisfied with the high price for the CD-ROM.

Regarding the follow-up action item (25) from the 1999 ASFA Board Meeting

"(25) Regarding the CD-ROM delivery schedule, CSA agreed to put it up on their Web site."

CSA reported this as done.

Regarding the follow-up action item (26) from the 1999 ASFA Board Meeting

"(26) BF suggested the use of UNICODE or HTML to represent special characters, and CSA agreed to investigate the use of HTML. In the mean time, Partners may, if they desire, submit their input to CSA with diacritical marks."

CSA reported that it could technically handle any code, but since it must give the records to the providers (CD-ROM producers and Online spinners) it is they who ultimately decide not to support the special characters. CSA is in any case archiving the records that arrive with special characters for future reloading.

BF suggested HTML or UNICODE to represent special characters.

The ASFA Secretariat reported that the FAO WAICENT (World Agricultural Information Centre) was adopting SGML and XML/XSL as standards for document management.

CSA, BF and NISC agreed to make recommendations regarding coding of diacritical marks, but all Partners are urged to participate in the discussions.
a) Wrongly transliterated names

Ms Skotheim mentioned some problems with Norwegian names, CSA said that certain types of errors could be corrected in the wrongly transliterated names but not all of them. See section 6.1.2.36 (CSA Report) for discussion on how to communicate errors and their corrections to CSA.
b) ISSN numbers for the electronic journals

CSA mentioned the case of two identical journals (same source) one version in printed format and one in electronic format which, as is the norm, are assigned two different ISSN numbers. CSA requested a separate field to input the electronic version's ISSN.

The Board agreed to temporarily put the electronic version's ISSN number in the Notes field preceded by the letter "e" (e.g. eISSN: 1018-3469). In this way, when the separate field is added to the ASFA input software CSA can retrieve these ISSN numbers and reallocate them to the correct field where they can then be searched.

Partners agreed to notify FAO when they discover an ISSN for an electronic journal version.

FAO agreed to collect these ISSN's and will investigate creating another field in the monitoring list database to accommodate the number.
c) Addressed for first and subsequent authors

Ms Prod'homme relayed to the Board the strong desire of her user scientists to see all authors of a document have their affiliations listed in the record (i.e., the first author with full postal address and all the others with only Institute name, city and country)

The Board agreed that this would be a good feature (for bibliometric and management studies) if included in a database although it would require considerable effort.

In any case the present ASFA input software would not support so many author affiliations so the facility must wait for the next version of the ASFA input software. In any case, such entries would only appear on the database.
d) Abbreviated and full serial titles

The Board agreed on the utility of the full serial titles over the abbreviated titles and requested FAO to adjust the ASFISIS software to input the full title for export to CSA.

FAO agreed to investigate carrying out this change. The change-over target date would be January 2001.
8.2 New Outputs and Services

Dr Oresland introduced for discussion the topic "copyright problems related to publishing ASFA references on Internet". He described the semi-hypothetical situation where a group of Cod fish specialists pool their efforts to create and maintain a web site and reprint service (for public access) dedicated to cod ecology. A large portion of the records making up the database are downloaded from the ASFA database and the remaining records come from the individual scientist's personal bibliographies. Some extra coding and terms would be added to the records.

The question directed to CSA by Dr Oresland was: "could he make this Cod database available to colleagues via the Internet?"

Dr Emerson replied that such requests are frequently received by CSA and permission is granted in a large number of the cases depending on: the number (percentage) of records derived from ASFA, the use of full or partial citations, the size of the database, the intended use, and eventual target audience.

Dr Oresland and CSA agreed to further discuss the matter.

The Board requested the serial tiles and other reference titles collected for the Cod bibliography, which do not appear in ASFA, be eventually added to the ASFA monitoring responsibility.
8.3 Public Relations Activities and Marketing

The Chair opened this Agenda item by referring the CSA (Annex-31) which contains a section describing public relation activities. A similar section in the NISC Report (Annex-32) was also mentioned.

8.4 Partner Entitlements

The ASFA Secretariat opened this Agenda item by referring to the table of Partner's entitlements contained on page 17 of the FAO Report (Annex-3). Partners were advised to contact CSA (Dr Emerson) to activate their entitlement to the IDS service) or to signal any other discrepancies.
8.5 Increasing Distribution of ASFA Information Products and Services

The Chair opened this item referring to document "Increasing Distribution of Information Products in Developing Countries" ASFA/2000.50 (Annex-35). The ASFA Secretariat presented a brief summary of the Report by Ms Cochrane mentioning that the initiative became operational (i.e. started delivering CD-ROMs) at the beginning of the year. To date twenty institutes in Low Income Food Deficit Countries (LIFDC) in Africa, identified jointly between FAO and IOC, are receiving the ASFA CD-ROM (plus 2 IDS subscriptions are going to institutes in Asia). The initiative took so long to get started because the process of identifying institutes, explaining the initiative, establishing contacts, signing agreements and making delivery mechanisms was more time consuming than anticipated.

IOC will also suggest additional institutions to be considered after comparing the list in ASFS/2000/50 and the list of institutions participating in the ODINAFRICA project.

FAO has requested the recipient institutes to report on the use and utility of the CD-ROMs and hopefully a Report can be submitted to the Board at the next Meeting. Future plans for this initiative include: extension of the two year trial period, expansion of the CD-ROM initiative to Latin America and Asia and Oceania and identification of additional institutes for access to the IDS service.

Mr Rao agreed to assist in identifying institutes in Oceania to benefit from the IDS initiative and Mr Macharia's list of three institutes requiring PC's may also be considered for this initiative.

The Board expressed their satisfaction with the progress of this initiative.
9. PROGRESS WITH MACHINE READABLE INPUT

9.1 ASFISIS (release 3), i.e., current software interface used for ASFA input by Partners

The ASFA Secretariat mentioned the updates that were issued during the intersessional period.

FAO agreed to check on the feasibility of inserting the spell checker developed by Dr DeSmet into the current ASFISIS release-3 software, although FAO recalled that there were some questions regarding its utility and that's why it was never adopted (e.g. to be useful the checker needed to be very large and this slowed down ASFISIS excessively.

9.2 WWW-ISIS, i.e. the next development regarding interface for ASFA input

The ASFA Secretariat sent Partners the web site addresses which explained and demonstrated the www-isis search and input modules. Unfortunately only one Partner (NIO) had sufficient time to examine the sites in any detail before the Meeting. Some descriptive information was distributed regarding the www-isis system as distributed by the Institute for Computer and Information Engineering (ICIE).

The ASFA Secretariat reported that the data input system being developed by the GILW/Agris group can be used over the internet and also on a stand-alone normal Windows computer. The system only uses a browser as a front-end, the www/ISIS application as the middleware and ISIS software as the background. This system can be used on one PC (stand-alone) on LANs, WANs, and on the Internet which is an attractive feature of the system and now common to many data input systems. A recent message received from Dr DeSmet reiterates his full support for the www-approach like the one being developed by ICIE for AGRIS.

The ASFA Secretariat repeated that the web or www-isis interface will provide all of the present ASFISIS functionality plus some added Library functions, therefore The ASFA Secretariat does not see much scope for discussion regarding approach and functionality as this is what the Board seems to have been requesting. What remains to be done is to further focus the functionality to include any additional features which may have been missing or poorly developed in the current ASFISIS software.

To define and list the functionality and features required for the ASFA version of www-ISIS interface. The Board agreed to reactivate the ASFISIS working group (FAO, NIO, BF, PIMRIS). They will collate the items and discuss the issues and items brought up in this report. They will also test the interface once it is ready.

CSA agreed to send FAO the validation program which it runs against the ASFA files for inclusion in the new system.

When the ASFISIS working group has completed the list of functionalities and features, the detailed requirement specifications will be sent to ICIE (the developers of the www-ISIS system) for an estimate on how much it will cost to modify the AGRIS module to these specifications. At that point, a contract for the work may be issued and the Trust Fund proposal approved in section 13.2.4 of this Report (Development of Web based ASFISIS interface with GILW/AGRIS) can be amended if necessary.

BF raised the question of including separate field and sub-fields in ASFISIS for publication year, month and day. The Board agreed that the matter should be considered by the ASFISIS technical committee for inclusion in the next version of the ASFISIS software.
10. REPORT ON ASFA TRAINING ACTIVITIES

The ASFA Secretariat carried out 7 training sessions during the Intersessional period. In addition, Ms Prod'homme assisted FAO in the training of Mr Philippe Tohouegnon (librarian for the DFID/FAO Sustainable Fisheries Livelihoods Programme) for which FAO is extremely grateful. Information on each of the Training sessions contained in Annex-6 of the FAO Report (Annex-3).

During 2000-2001, FAO foresees training for Portugal, Bulgaria, and some Latin American countries.

11. STATUS OF ASFIS REFERENCE SERIES PUBLICATIONS

11.1 ASFIS-1, Serials Monitored for the ASFIS Bibliographic Database

The ASFA Secretariat reported that Ms Lombardi was still maintaining this file and that she relied on the input of Partners.

The ASFA Secretariat announced that the complete, updated ASFA Monitoring List (in text format) is now available for viewing or downloading on the ASFA Homepage (note: the List is also available on the ASFA Homepage, in ISO2709 format, for downloading and importing into the ASFISIS (release-3) software, so as to replace the existing superseded list).

Dr Emerson explained that CSA maintained a parallel monitoring list which includes all of the journals monitored for ASFA, and also a list of all past journals on the ASFA monitoring list that have been dropped. CSA does not signal for inclusion in the ASFA monitoring list the occasional journal which contains the occasional ASFA relevant article and this can and does cause some duplication of input. CSA is collecting statistics on coverage of each journal with the idea of establishing a cut off point after which they would consider the journal for inclusion in the ASFA monitoring list. He mentioned the importance for CSA clients of a monitoring list containing all journals that were ever monitored for ASFA (with a record of when the monitoring started and ceased).

CSA requested The ASFA Secretariat to modify the Monitoring List to include information on ceased or dropped publications including with dates.

FAO agreed to investigate the possibility of compiling/maintaining such a list given the already heavy work load of the Secretariat staff.
a) Core Journals

CSA stated that another list they considered useful was core journals (i.e. the journals that Partners monitor cover-to-cover).

Regarding this issue there was also a follow-up action item (20) from the 1999 ASFA Board Meeting

"(20) The Board agreed that Partners should continue to identify core and non core titles on their monitoring list in their responses to Ms. Wibley's study and to send them to FAO."

The ASFA Secretariat reported that only one Partner (NIO) had responded to the appeal for core journals.

The Board agreed to send core serial titles to FAO by the end of December 2000, and FAO would investigate the possibility of adding a "core" field to the Monitoring List. For the purposes of this exercise "core" does not refer to the importance of the journal but only to the fact that it is monitored "cover to cover".

The ASFA Secretariat raised the issue regarding the monitoring of journals (and preparation of input) for publications published in developed countries which are not willing (for one reason or another) to join the ASFA Partnership.
11.2 ASFIS-2, Subject Categories and Scope Descriptions

The intersessional Working Group (IOC, NOAA, FAO, CSA, BF) which was established at the 1998 ASFA Board Meeting to investigate the need for new categories and the elimination of unused categories reported no action. The Board agreed to disband this group, as there was no longer an expressed need to update these categories especially now that the IOC GLODIR project was not using the categories anymore to index scientist's specialities.

The Publication can now be printed and put on the FAO ASFA Homepage.
11.3 ASFIS-3, Guidelines for Bibliographic Description

During the inter-sessional period, YugNIRO completed the translation into Russian of this publication.
11.4 ASFIS-4, Guidelines for Abstracting

The ASFA Secretariat hopes to finalise this publication (still a draft version) and publish it. For finalisation the document needs an improved set of sample records which are used in the manual to demonstrate the different abstract types for different document types. The required changes are time consuming, but not of major significance in improving the document, hence the low priority.

During the inter-sessional period, YugNIRO completed the translation into Russian of this publication.
11.5 ASFIS-5, Guidelines for Indexing

This document is still classified as a draft version. The finalized version requires incorporation of the one page "update sheet" that was issued when the ASFISIS (release-3) software was distributed.

During the inter-sessional period, YugNIRO completed the translation into Russian of this publication.
11.6 ASFIS-6, Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Thesaurus

Ms Cameron reviewed the situation developments regarding the Thesaurus during the intersessional period which included formatting, printing and distribution to Partners for testing.

Ms Cameron, who has to date been collecting the Partners comments regarding the thesaurus, reported few replies from Partners.

FAO agreed to send out a reminder to Partners to use the printed Thesaurus for indexing, and to send corrections and suggestions for new terms to FAO by March 2001(attention: R. Pepe). FAO will circulate them to the Thesaurus (FAO, BF, CSA, Canada, IFREMER, PIMRIS) committee for comments.

The corrections and suggested terms will then be sent to Heather Cameron for discussions with Julia Hudson regarding the incorporation of the changes and the eventual need for a Trust Fund project.

The goal is to publish the Thesaurus before the next Meeting.

CSA agreed to make a quote for a bulk printing.

The Board noted that there was now a Chinese translation of the ASFA Thesaurus done by NMDIS.
11.7 ASFIS-7, Geographic Authority List

CSA reported that it sent the completed list to FAO in 1999, but FAO had no record of this. CSA agreed to send an updated file. FAO would then proceed in preparing it for loading by Partners into the ASFISIS software which may require the assistance of Dr DeSmet.

The Board requested that the new www-ASFISIS interface contain a geographic authority list which is thesaurus-like or searchable.. FAO agreed to include this in the discussion of the ASFISIS Working Group.

BF reported that it did not follow up on requesting permission from the Baltic Commission to use the BalticSeaWeb thesaurus of geographical terms.
11.8 ASFIS-8, Taxonomic Authority List

THE ASFA SECRETARIAT reported on the newly computerized list of taxonomic terms (10,000 terms) compiled by FAO and its availability via the FAO Fisheries Web page. This pick-list will most likely be included in the next version of the www-ASFISIS software. Therefore the ASFISIS Working Group will also include this in its list of modifications needed to customise the AGRIS www-ISIS system to ASFA specifications.

The ASFA Secretariat reported that Dr DeSmet, soon after the release of this list, had prepared a beta version for testing within the ASFISIS software, however the ASFA Group did not yet have the time to test it.
11.9 ASFIS-9, Database User Guide

No action reported.
11.10 ASFIS-10, Authority List for Corporate Names

The ASFA Secretariat reported that it received the updated list from CSA during the intersessional period. Dr DeSmet converted it to an ISO file and it was sent to Partners for updating of the pick-list contained in ASFISIS.
11.11 ASFIS-11, Magnetic Tape Specifications and Record Format

CSA reported that the need expressed last year to update this publication and to carry out a side-by-side comparison of the ISO2709 exchange format and the Dialog B format was no longer required.
12. EXPANDED LANGUAGE CAPABILITY IN ASFA

The ASFA Secretariat reported that the new www-ISIS ASFA interface, because of its development together with the FAO AGRIS group, will be advantaged in its adaptation for multi-lingual usage.
13. ASFA TRUST FUND

13.1 Status of the ASFA Trust Fund

The ASFA Secretariat introduced this agenda item. The balance in the Trust Fund account is US$177,494.51. CSA deposited US$85,412.46 in royalties for 1999 and BF deposited DM151,23. Annex-36 and Annex-37 give details on the status of the Trust Fund and a slight breakdown of the calculation of CSA Royalty payment.
13.2 New Proposals

The Board discussed the following proposals:

13.2.1 Supporting attendance to Board Meeting (year 2001)

The Board agreed to maintain the present allocation of ($15,000), but reserved the possibility to amend the sum should the need arise.
13.2.2 Staff Support to The ASFA Secretariat (Jan-Dec 2001)(Annex-38)

The Board agreed to approve this proposal ($31,460) in principle with amendment to the activities in view of Ms Wibley's addition to the FAO regular staff. This proposal will again be reviewed next Meeting for 2002.
13.2.3 Workshops for familiarization (training) in the ASFA input methodology (Annex-39)

The Board agreed to this proposal in principle. The total funds to be charged against the ASFA Trust Fund were reduced to $28,800. The $15,000 allocated in the proposal for FAO travel and subsistence will not be taken from the ASFA Trust Fund.
13.2.4 Support to the Development of Web based interface to ASFISIS together with GILW/AGRIS group (Annex-40)

The Board agreed to this proposal in principle for $10,000 but the final cost would depend on the amount of changes that the Board requests to be made to the existing AGRIS www-ISIS system. All of the funds for this proposal are expected to be used to pay for the work required to adapt/modify the AGRIS www-ISIS system to ASFA specifications. Any funds necessary to reimburse the AGRIS group for costs "to date" to develop the base system will be paid by FAO/FIDI and not from the ASFA Trust Fund.
13.2.5 Provision of ASFA Centres in former USSR with reference materials for input 2 ASFIS-2 (Subject Categories and Scope Descriptors) (Annex-28)

The Board agreed to this proposal ($1,500) to translate into Russian the above mentioned ASFIS Reference Series publication.

The Board agreed that translations of the ASFIS Reference Series Publications should be made available on the FAO ASFA Homepage, and FAO agreed to take action.

13.2.6 Conversion of ASFA Printed journals into machine readable format year 1973 (see Annex-11 of 1998 Board Report for original project idea) and Kenya Report (Annex-20).

The Board agreed that KMFRI shall carry out the work to convert the 1973 journals into machine readable format, including bibliographic citations, abstracts and indexing.

The proposal is for US$15,000, however the Board agreed that the final sum may be adjusted to account for hidden or additional costs. When the NIO experience in the same initiative (for the 1974 journals) is finished, a more realistic cost estimate will be available.

13.2.7 Conversion of ASFA Printed journals into machine readable format year 1972

The Board agreed that China (NMDIS) shall carry out the work to convert the 1972 journals into machine readable format, including bibliographic citations and abstracts, but not indexing.

The proposal is for US$15,000, however as for the above conversion of the 1973 journals the final sum may need to be adjusted to account for hidden or additional costs. The work on this project should begin after June 2001.
13.3 Proposals in Progress, Completed or Pending Further Discussion

13.3.1 Staff support to ASFA Secretariat $31,460 Jan-Dec 2000) Completed up to September 2000 (halted with the assumption of Ms Wibley as an FAO staff member.

13.3.2 Improvement of the ASFA Database (BF proposal) $15,000 (see Annex-18a of 1999 ASFA Board Report for project document)

This proposal was signed by BF during the Meeting.

13.3.3 Addition of 45,000 abstracts to 1975-77 ASFA Database ($17,00) (China/NMDIS) with BF collaboration.

Mr Yang Ying reported the project as underway. The dump of the file was received from BF, converted to ISO-2709 format and loaded into ASFISIS. The abstracts are now being keyed. NMDIS has found some records without or with incomplete English titles. They are attempting to correct these discrepancies.
13.3.4 Support to attend annual year 2000 ASFA Advisory Board Meeting

The ASFA Secretariat reported this as completed
13.3.5 Provision of ASFA Centres former USSR with reference materials for input (YugNiro)

Dr Romanov reported this as completed with all publications having been translated..
13.3.6 Convert 500 Records from PIMRIS database into ASFISIS format

Mr Rao reported that now that they are ready to begin the preparation of ASFA input they will also begin work on the Trust Fund proposal before the next Meeting

13.3.7 Conversion of ASFA Printed journals into machine readable format year 1974

Mr Tapaswi reported that all the records had been scanned and that now the proof reading stage was underway. The estimated or target date for completing the project is December 2000. At that time the NIO Trust Fund proposal ($15,000) may also require amending to compensate for originally underestimated costing. The Board agreed to amending the final payment should it be necessary.

With the experience gained from this exercise, NIO agreed to provide advice to the other Partners who will be converting the 1971-1973 journals. NIO agreed to produce a list of techniques and solutions and software that NIO used in carrying out the conversion.
13.3.8 ASFA user survey

The Board discussed the need and intended use of a formal ASFA user survey. The Board voted against a formal survey.

The Board agreed that Partners should collect comments over the next year regarding complaints, opinions, and compliments received from users regarding ASFA. This information should be sent to CSA by e-mail (put the words " User feedback" in the subject line of the message to identify the message as part of this survey) and once a month CSA will forward the collective comments to all Partners. On the basis of these comments, the Board agreed to consider the need for a formal user survey.

The Board suggested that a FAQ (frequently asked question) file regarding ASFA be put up on the FAO ASFA home page. CSA agreed to send some of its FAQ to FAO as a basis for the list.

FAO agreed on the need for such a list and has been planning such a list for some time regarding the ASFISIS software.

13.4 TRUST FUND (FEASIBILITY STUDIES)

This paper was tabled for discussion by Dr Kirchner and Dr Tapaswi (Annex-41). The paper contained 4 potential project proposals aimed at improving and developing the ASFA database/system which however still needed further small study (feasibility study) before a full Trust Fund Proposals could be elaborated.

Considerable discussion followed regarding how much commitment should be linked to a feasibility study (i.e., commitment to carry out a follow-up project). The Board agreed that some Trust Fund proposals will naturally require a feasibility study and in these cases they will be approved.

The Board agreed in principle to the feasibility study presented by Dr Kirchner (GIS interface for searching of information on geographic locations based on polygons). BF agreed to notify the Board of the work involved in the feasibility study, in October 2000, after consultations with an FAO staff member who will be visiting BF with information useful to this initiative.
14. OTHER BUSINESS

The items discussed here were not actually other business so they were moved under the appropriate agenda items.
15. PLACE AND DATE OF NEXT MEETING

Ms Prod'homme repeated the offer she made at the 1998 ASFA Board Meeting, by the Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER) located in Plouzane, France, to host the year 2001 ASFA Advisory Board Meeting tentatively from 19-22 June.

The ASFA Secretariat reported that Ms Marisela Ceballos also reiterated the interest of the Centro de Investigaciones Pesqueras (CIP) in holding the ASFA Board Meeting in Havana, Cuba.

Mr. Macharia offered to host the 2002 ASFA Board Meeting at Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute in Kenya.

The Board agreed to meet 19-22 June, 2001 in France, at the Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER). The final dates will be confirmed by mid October 2000.

The Board thanked France, Cuba, and Kenya for their offers and noted that Cuba and Kenya will be considered as venues for future Meetings.

On behalf of all the ASFA Board Members, the Chair thanked Dr Tapaswi (NIO) for the local arrangements and hospitality. The NIO staff were also thanked for their assistance during the Meeting.

Mr Tapaswi thanked the Board for having its Meeting at NIO and mentioned how important it has been for the status of the library being an ASFA Partner.

The Board also thanked the Chair, and co-Chair.

(NOTE: all of the action items agreed at this Meeting are listed in Annex-43 of this Report)

ANNEX 1

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

UN CO-SPONSORING ASFA PARTNERS

FAO

Dr. R. Grainger
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Fishery Information, Data and Statistics Unit (FIDI)
Fisheries Department
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla
00100, Rome, Italy

Tel: (39) (6) 570 54828 / E-mail: [email protected]
Fax: (39) (6) 570 52476 / URL: http://www.fao.org/fi

Dr. R. Pepe
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
Fishery Information, Data and Statistics Unit (FIDI)
Fisheries Department
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla
00100, Rome, Italy

Tel: (39) (6) 570 56380 / E-mail: [email protected]
Fax: (39) (6) 570 52476 / URL: http://www.fao.org/fi
IOC

Mr. Mika Odido
IOC/IODE Consultant
Head, IOCINCWIO / ODINAFRICA Project Office
IOC-UNESCO
P.O. Box 95832
Mombasa, Kenya

Tel: 254 11 47 25 27 / Fax: 254 11 47 51 57
E-mail: [email protected] / http://www.ioc.unesco.org

INTERNATIONAL ASFA PARTNERS

PIMRIS

Mr. G. Rao
Pacific Islands Marine Resources Information System (PIMRIS)
Marine Studies Programme
The University of the South Pacific
P.O. Box 1168
Suva, FIJI Islands

Tel: (679) 313 900 ext. 2284 or 212284 / Fax: (679) 301 490 or (679) 300 830
E-mail: [email protected] / [email protected]

NATIONAL ASFA PARTNERS

CANADA

Ms. H. Cameron
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Library Policy and Services
200 Kent Street K1A OE6
Ottawa, ON, Canada
for
National Research Council Canada
Building M-55, 1200 Montreal Rd
Ottawa ON K1A 0R6, Canada

Tel: (613) 993-2926 / Fax: (613) 990-4901
E-mail: [email protected] / URL: http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca
CHINA, PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

Mr. Xu Chengde
National Marine Data and Information Service (NMDIS)
State Oceanic Administration of China (SOA)
93 Liuwei Road, Hedong District
Tianjin 300171
People's Republic of China

Tel: (86) (22) 24214161 ext 3717; (86) (22) 24300871
Fax: (86) (22) 2430 44 08
E-mail: [email protected] / URL: http://www.coi.gov.cn

Mr. Yang Ying
National Marine Data and Information Service (NMDIS)
State Oceanic Administration of China (SOA)
93 Liuwei Road, Hedong District
Tianjin 300171
People's Republic of China

Tel: (86) (22) 24214161 ext 3901; (86) (22) 24300871
Fax: (86) (22) 2430 44 08
E-mail: [email protected] / URL: http://www.coi.gov.cn
ESTONIA

Ms. M. Kalenchits
Estonian Marine Institute
Library
Viljandi Rd. 18b
11216 Tallinn, Estonia

Tel.: +372 6 281 561 / Fax: +372 6 281 563
E-mail: [email protected] / URL:http://www.sea.ee
FRANCE

Ms. J. Prod'homme
Institut Francais de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER)
Service de la Documentation et des Bibliotheques (SDB)
Centre de Brest, B.P. 70
29280 Plouzane, France

Tel: 33 298 22 4019 / Fax: 33 298 22 45 86
E-Mail: [email protected] / [email protected]
GERMANY

Dr. W. Kirchner
Bundesforschungsanstalt fuer Fisherei (BF)
Informations- und Dokumentationsstelle
Palmaille 9
22767 Hamburg, Germany

Tel: (+40) 38 90 51 13 / Fax: (+40) 38 90 52 61
E-mail: [email protected] / [email protected]
URL: http://www.bfa-fisch.de
GREECE

Ms. S. Goulala
National Centre for Marine Research (NCMR)
Library, Documentation and Information Centre
Ag. Kosmas, GR. 16604 Elliniko
Athens, Greece

Tel: 0030 1 96 53 520-21 / Fax: 0030 1 96 53 522
E- mail: [email protected] / URL: http://atlantis.fl.ncmr.gr

INDIA

Dr. M. P. Tapaswi
National Institute of Oceanography (NIO)
National Information Centre for Marine Sciences (NICMAS)
Library
Dona Paula, Goa 403 004, India

Tel: 91 -(0) 832 22 62 53 ext.4276 / Fax: 91 -(0)832 22 33 40
E-mail: [email protected] / URL: http://www.nio.org

Mr. G. H. Sainekar
National Institute of Oceanography (NIO)
National Information Centre for Marine Sciences (NICMAS)
Library
Dona Paula, Goa 403 004, India

Tel: 91 -(0) 832 22 62 53 ext.4370 / Fax: 91 -(0)832 22 33 40
E-mail: [email protected] / URL: http://www.nio.org

Mr. A. K. Gawas
National Institute of Oceanography (NIO)
National Information Centre for Marine Sciences (NICMAS)
Library
Dona Paula, Goa 403 004, India
Tel: 91 -(0) 832 22 62 53 ext.4370 / Fax: 91 -(0)832 22 33 40
E-mail: [email protected] / URL: http://www.nio.org

Dr. P, G. Viswanathan Nair (Principal Scientist)
Central Institute of Fisheries Technology
COCHIN - 682029, India

Tel: 0484 666845 / Fax: 0484 668212
E-mail: [email protected] / [email protected]
KENYA

Mr J. Macharia
Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI)
RECOSCIX-WIO
P.O. Box 81651
Mombasa, Kenya

Tel: 254 11 47 11 29 / 254 11 47 25 27 / Fax: 254 11 47 51 57
E-mail: [email protected] / [email protected] / http://www.recoscix.org
KOREA

Mr. Jong-Yup Han
Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute (KORDI)
Ansan P.O. Box 29
Seoul 425-600, Korea

Tel.: (82-31) 400-6465 / Fax: (82-31) 409-0325
E-mail: [email protected] / http://www.kordi.re.kr
NORWAY

Ms. B. Skotheim
Institute of Marine Research (IMR)
Nordnesgaten 50
P.O. Box 1870 - Nordnes
N-5024 Bergen, Norway

Tel:(47) (55) 23 85 50 / Tlx:42297 OCEAN N / Fax: (47) (55) 23 85 85
E-mail: [email protected]
RUSSIA

Dr. A. Zhavoronkov
Federal Research Institute of Fisheries andOceanography (VNIRO)
17, V. Krasnoselskaya
Moscow, 107140, Russia

Tel: (095) 264 9498 / 264 9289 / Fax: (095) 264 91 87 / E-mail: [email protected]
SWEDEN

Dr. V. Oresland
National Board of Fisheries
Institute of Marine Research (IMR)
Turistgatan 5
S-45321 Lysekil, Sweden

Tel: +46 (0) 523-18734 / Fax: +46 (0) 523-139 77
E-mail: vidar.oresland@fiskeriverket.se / http://www.fiskeriverket.se

UKRAINE

Dr. E. Romanov
Southern Scientific Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography (YugNIRO)
Laboratory of Pacific and Indian Oceans Fish Resources and Fishery Statistics
2 Sverdlov Street, Kerch, 98300
Crimea, Ukraine

Tel: (380) (6561) 21065 / Fax: (380) (6561) 21572
E-mail: [email protected]

PUBLISHING ASFA PARTNER

CSA

Dr. C. Emerson
CSA
7200 Wisconsin Ave.
Bethesda, Maryland 20814, USA

Tel: (301) 961 67 44 / Fax: (301) 961 67 40
E-mail: [email protected] / URL: http://www.csa.com
OBSERVERS

Ms. A.S. McPhail
National Inquiry Services Centre (NISC) Pty Ltd
PO Box 377
Grahamstown
6140 South Africa

Tel +27 46 6229698/29677
Fax +27 46 6229550 / E-mail [email protected] / URL: http://www.nisc.co.za
ANNEX 43

DECISIONS (SUGGESTIONS) AND ACTIONS AGREED BY PARTICIPANTS

Report on Inter-sessional Activities of the ASFA Partners

FAO agreed to follow up on the status of UNEP's participation in ASFA. (p 2)*

Greece (NCMR) suggested that Partners requests for book lists and eventual copies of the books from commercial Publishers in their countries. She also suggested that a Partner consider donating books to other Partners who are willing to prepare the input for them. (p 3)

Action all Partners: when sending ASFA input to CSA regardless of the media (e-mail attachment, FTP, or on diskette), it was agreed that Partners MUST always alert CSA by sending an e-mail to the following three CSA staff: 1)Viki Soto, Aquatic Sciences Supervisor, at [email protected], 2) Craig Emerson, Director of Editorial Operations, at [email protected] and 3) Jain Hemant, computer specialist, at [email protected]). (p 5)

Regarding missing records and corrections of errors in existing records, CSA agreed to circulate to Partners a format for submitting requests for the correction of records. (p 5)
Structure of Partner's Reports and Final Meeting Report

The Board agreed that the following structure for Reports was useful and should be continued. (p 5)

complete institute name and address information,

Board Member and input staff names,

input statistics,

distribution list for complimentary ASFA entitlements,

usefulness of ASFA products to your users (e.g. some user feed back on ASFA products),

changes to monitoring list information (e.g., titles added, deleted, modified),

problems, and

ideas for development of and improvements to ASFA, including trust fund proposals.

5.1 The inclusion of trends, as in the Estonian Report (ASFA/2000/21), was mentioned as desirable but not mandatory. (p 5)

5.2 Partners are requested to expand on the " Usefulness" section of their Reports perhaps through small local surveys of user satisfaction. (p 5)

5.3 Further standardization of the Reports would require Partners using the same type size (10pt) and the same font (one that is sans serif, for example arial) and 12 point spacing between lines. (p 5)

5.4 FAO agreed to send out a reminder before the next Board Meeting regarding the format to use for the Report. (p 5)

5.5 CSA agreed to try and produce usage statistics (i.e., how many searches have been done on a particular server). (p 5)

Regarding the ASFA Board Meeting Reports, the Board agreed that the current format and content should be continued. (p 5)
Admission of New Partners

The FAO agreed to write to each Partner officially communicating their acceptance into the Partnership by the ASFA Advisory Board, but also reminding them that entitlements and listing in the title pages of the journals will only commence with the submission of input for inclusion in the ASFA database. (p 6)
Consideration of Potential Partners

PIMRIS agreed to follow up again on identifying a potential ASFA Partner in New Zealand. (p 6)

The Board agreed to endorse the FAO strategy " Increasing the Coverage of ASFA (New Partners". (p 6)
ASFA SCOPE, COVERAGE, MONITORING AND TIMELINESS

FAO suggested that "future strategies for development" should be added to the Agenda and papers could be contributed by consultants. (p 7)

CSA agreed to add a new section to its annual report dealing with " future developments". (p 7)
Studies on coverage of Fishery Economics and Fisheries Technology

Action all Partners: FAO reminded Partners of the need to put into action the suggestions or ideas to improve coverage contained in the two studies on coverage of Fisheries Economics and Fisheries Technology. (p 8)

The Board agreed that papers dealing with "sociology" as well as economics and politics are important in today's integrated approach to resource management. Therefore CSA was encouraged to follow through with this initiative and to carry out a similar search in their recently acquired political science database. (p 8)

CSA agreed to add the relevant records from the sociology database to ASFA using the ASFA indexing terms. (p 8)
Coverage of ICES Conference Papers

FAO agreed to communicate to ICES the Board's concern regarding BF's inability to continue its monitoring of the ICES CM papers, and that this non coverage for ASFA would be a great disservice to the world's scientific community. ICES is urged, therefore, to find a solution. (p 8)
List of Book Publishers

BF suggested the compilation of a list of book publishers (commercial, academic etc.) which regularly publish titles within the subject scope of ASFA. This would serve as a check that the main publishers are being monitored.

FAO agreed to investigate maintaining the list of publishers for each Partner country. (p 8)

The Board agreed that Partners will send FAO the names of such Publishers. (p 8)
Timeliness

Action all Partners: CSA reminds Partners that it is better to send their input to CSA in small batches (50-100 records) at short intervals (every month) rather than one or two big batches per year. (p 9)
ASFA Journals, CD-ROM and Database

CSA, BF and NISC agreed to make recommendations regarding coding of diacritical marks, but all Partners are urged to participate in the discussions. (p 9)
ISSN numbers for the electronic journals

The Board agreed to temporarily put the electronic version's ISSN number in the Notes field preceded by the letter "e" (e.g. eISSN: 1018-3469). In this way, when the separate field is added to the ASFA input software CSA can retrieve these ISSN numbers and reallocate them to the correct field where they can then be searched. (p 9)

Partners agreed to notify FAO when they discover an ISSN for an electronic journal version. (p 9)

FAO agreed to collect these ISSN's and will investigate creating another field in the monitoring list database to accommodate the number. (p 9)
Addressed for first and subsequent authors

Regarding the inclusion of all the author affiliations cited in a single document (i.e., the first author with full postal address and all the others with only Institute name, city and country)

The Board agreed that this would be a good feature (for bibliometric and management studies) if included in a database although it would require considerable effort. (p 9)
Abbreviated and full serial titles

The Board agreed on the utility of the full serial titles over the abbreviated titles and requested FAO to adjust the ASFISIS software to input the full title for export to CSA. (p 10)

FAO agreed to investigate the possibility to carry out this change. The target date for the changeover is January 2001. (p 10)
New Outputs and Services

Dr Oresland and CSA agreed to further discuss the matter of making the Cod database (containing records from ASFA) available to colleagues via the Internet. (p 10)

The Board requested from Dr Oersland the serial tiles and other reference titles collected for the Cod bibliography which do not appear in ASFA, so they can be eventually added to the ASFA monitoring responsibility. (p 10)
Increasing Distribution of ASFA Information Products and Services

Regarding the initiative "Increasing Distribution of Information Products in Developing Countries" ASFA/2000.50. The Board expressed their satisfaction with the progress of this initiative. (p 10)

IOC will also suggest additional institutions to be considered after comparing the list in ASFS/2000/50 and the list of institutions participating in the ODINAFRICA project. (p 10)

PIMRIS agreed to assist in identifying institutes in Oceania to benefit from the IDS initiative and Mr Macharia's list of three institutes requiring PC's may also be considered for this initiative. (p 10)
PROGRESS WITH MACHINE READABLE INPUT

FAO agreed to check on the feasibility of inserting the spell checker developed by Dr DeSmet into the current ASFISIS release-3 software. (p 10)

The Board agreed to reactivate the ASFISIS working group (FAO, NIO, BF, PIMRIS) in order to define and list the functionality and features required for the ASFA version of www-ISIS interface. They will collate the items and discuss the issues and items brought up in this report. They will also test the interface once it is ready. (p 11)

CSA agreed to send FAO the validation program which it runs against the ASFA files for inclusion in the new system. (p 11)

BF raised the question of including separate field and sub-fields in ASFISIS for publication year, month and day. The Board agreed that the matter should be considered by the ASFISIS technical committee for inclusion in the next version of the ASFISIS software. (p 11)
STATUS OF ASFIS REFERENCE SERIES PUBLICATIONS

ASFIS-1, Serials Monitored for the ASFIS Bibliographic Database

CSA requested the ASFA Secretariat to modify the Monitoring List to include information on ceased or dropped publications including dates.

FAO agreed to investigate the possibility of modifying/maintaining the Monitoring List to include information on ceased or dropped publications including dates. (p 12)
Core Journals

The Board agreed to send core serial titles to FAO by the end of December 2000, and FAO would investigate the possibility of adding a "core" field to the Monitoring List. For the purposes of this exercise "core" does not refer to the importance of the journal but only to the fact that it is monitored "cover to cover".
ASFIS-2, Subject Categories and Scope Descriptions

Board agreed to disband the intersessional Working Group (IOC, NOAA, FAO, CSA, BF) which was established at the 1998 ASFA Board Meeting to investigate the need for new categories and the elimination of unused categories, as there was no longer an expressed need to update these categories especially now that the IOC GLODIR project was not using the categories anymore to index scientist's specialities. (p 12)

The Publication can now be printed and be put on the FAO ASFA Homepage. (p 12)
ASFIS-6, Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Thesaurus

FAO agreed to send out a reminder to Partners to use the printed Thesaurus for indexing, and to send corrections/suggestions for new terms to FAO by March 2001 (attn: R. Pepe). FAO will circulate them to the Thesaurus committee (FAO, BF, CSA, Canada, IFREMER, PIMRIS) for comments. (p 12)

The corrections and suggested terms will then be sent to Heather Cameron for discussions with Julia Hudson regarding the incorporation of the changes and the eventual need for a Trust Fund project.

The goal is to publish the Thesaurus before the next Meeting.

CSA agreed to make a quote for a bulk printing. (p 12)
ASFIS-7, Geographic Authority List

CSA agreed to send an updated file. FAO would then proceed in preparing it for loading by Partners into the ASFISIS software which may require the assistance of Dr DeSmet.

The Board requested that the new www-ASFISIS interface contain a geographic authority list which is thesaurus-like or searchable.. FAO agreed to include this in the discussion of the ASFISIS Working Group.(pg 15)
ASFIS-8, Taxonomic Authority List

FAO reported that Dr DeSmet, after the release of this list, had prepared a beta version for testing within the ASFISIS software, however the ASFA Group did not yet have the time to test it. (p 13)
ASFA TRUST FUND NEW PROPOSALS

The Board discussed the following proposals:

Supporting attendance to Board Meeting (year 2001) - The Board agreed to maintain the present allocation of ($15,000), but reserved the possibility to amend the sum should the need arise. (p 13)

Staff Support to The ASFA Secretariat (Jan-Dec 2001) - The Board agreed to approve this proposal ($31,460) in principle with amendment to the activities in view of Ms Wibley's addition to the FAO regular staff. This proposal will again be reviewed next Meeting for 2002. (p 13)

Workshops for familiarization (training) in the ASFA input methodology - The Board agreed to this proposal in principle. The total funds to be charged against the ASFA Trust Fund were reduced to $28,800. The $15,000 allocated in the proposal for FAO travel and subsistence will not be taken from the ASFA Trust Fund. (p 13)

Support to the Development of Web based interface to ASFISIS together with GILW/AGRIS group - The Board agreed to this proposal in principle for $10,000 but the final cost would depend on the amount of changes that the Board requests to be made to the existing AGRIS www-ISIS system. All of the funds for this proposal are expected to be used to pay for the work required to adapt/modify the AGRIS www-ISIS system to ASFA specifications. Any funds necessary to reimburse the AGRIS group for costs "to date" to develop the base system will be paid by FAO/FIDI and not from the ASFA Trust Fund. (p 14)

Provision of ASFA Centres in former USSR with reference materials for input 2 ASFIS-2 (Subject Categories and Scope Descriptors) - The Board agreed to this proposal ($1,500) to translate into Russian the above mentioned ASFIS Reference Series publication. (p 14)

The Board agreed that translations of the ASFIS Reference Series Publications should be made available on the FAO ASFA Homepage, and FAO agreed to take action. (p 14)

Conversion of ASFA Printed journals into machine readable format year 1973 - The Board agreed that KMFRI shall carry out the work to convert the 1973 journals into machine readable format, including bibliographic citations, abstracts and indexing. (p 14)

The proposal is for US$15,000, however the Board agreed that the final sum may be adjusted to account for hidden or additional costs. When the NIO experience in the same initiative (for the 1974 journals) is finished, a more realistic cost estimate will be available.

Conversion of ASFA Printed journals into machine readable format year 1972 - The Board agreed that China (NMDIS) shall carry out the work to convert the 1972 journals into machine readable format, including bibliographic citations and abstracts, but not indexing. (p 14)

The proposal is for US$15,000, however as for the above conversion of the 1973 journals the final sum may need to be adjusted to account for hidden or additional costs. The work on this project should begin after June 2001. (p 14)

Conversion of ASFA Printed journals into machine readable format year 1974 - The Board agreed to amending the final payment should it be necessary. (p 14)

NIO agreed to provide advice to the other Partners who will be converting the 1971-1973 journals. NIO agreed to produce a list of techniques and solutions and software that NIO used in carrying out the conversion. (p 15)
ASFA user survey

The Board agreed that Partners should collect user's comments over the next year regarding complaints, opinions, and compliments received from users regarding ASFA. This information should be sent to CSA by e-mail (put the words " User feedback" in the subject line of the message to identify the message as part of this survey) and once a month CSA will forward the collective comments to all Partners. On the basis of these comments, the Board agreed to consider the need for a formal user survey. (p 15)

The Board suggested that a "frequently asked question" (FAQ) file regarding ASFA be put up on the FAO ASFA home page. CSA agreed to send some of its FAQs to FAO as a basis for the list. (p 15)

FAO agreed on the need for such a list and has been planning such a list for some time regarding the ASFISIS software. (p 14)
TRUST FUND (FEASIBILITY STUDIES)

The Board agreed that some Trust Fund proposals will naturally require a feasibility study and in these cases they will be approved. (p 15)

The Board agreed in principle to the feasibility study presented by Dr Kirchner (GIS interface for searching of information on geographic locations based on polygons). BF agreed to notify the Board of the work involved in the feasibility study, in October 2000, after consultations with an FAO staff member who will be visiting BF with information useful to this initiative. (p 15)
PLACE AND DATE OF NEXT MEETING

The Board agreed to meet 19-22 June, 2001 in France, at the Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER). The final dates will be confirmed by mid October 2000. (p 15)

*(page numbers appearing at the end of each item refers to body of the printed Report)