What is Europe’s problem with ASFA? Seeking solutions to declining European participation in, and use of ASFA

Produced in global partnership between more than 100 institutions and collaborative centres worldwide, the ASFA database will soon be celebrating its 50th anniversary. Although Partners from outside of Europe remain committed to playing an active role in the partnership, ASFA has witnessed a decline in the number of European institutions who are active in the ASFA Partnership.

Use of the ASFA database also appears less frequent in Europe than elsewhere. A recent survey conducted by ASFA showed European respondents had the lowest number of frequent ASFA users (26% of European respondents had used ASFA in the past month versus 53% of Asian respondents and 40% of North American respondents); and were most likely never to use ASFA (17% of European respondents versus 12% overall).

ASFA is seeking help from EURASLIC members to understand the reasons behind these trends and whether alternative ASFA partnership models would encourage European countries to renew active participation in ASFA. ASFA will also present a number of key improvements it is undertaking as part of a renewed Business Model. Improvements include: ASFA’s software for managing input and controlled vocabularies; implementing a strategy to cover grey literature; and exploration of free to access information products. The presentation will be followed by discussion and we welcome feedback from participants.