2. Keeping track of this cooperation of 20 years Background –INIDEP and Latin American countries
The INIDEP (National Institute for Fisheries Research and Development, Mar del Plata, Argentina) was founded on the basis of the former Institute of Marine Biology Institute ( )
The 70’s Since the middle 70’s, a permanent and obstinate interest of the Library staff to join the ASFA Information System, finally accomplished by INIDEP in the year 1996.
At the Library, the value of the ASFIS tools are detected
ASFA first appeared as a monthly abstract journal in July 1971.
Reference: Varley, Allen ASFA: The First Twenty Years. An outline history of Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts, Paris, IOC/INF-994, 70 pp.

3. 1977-1981 Times of ASFA Expansion and Computerisation
1978 Mexico (UNAM) becomes the first Latin American Country within ASFA. The aim was to cover Spanish language material published not only in Mexico but throughout the region, but the active participation of the other countries of Latin America and the Caribbean was both desirable and necessary.
1979 A Training Workshop was held in Cartagena, Colombia in December 1979, with participants from the region and from the ASFA input centres. Training was given in ASFA methodology and input preparation and an Argentine librarian from Institute of Marine Biology participated.

4. 1996 INIDEP signs the cooperating agreement with FAO.
Regarding the Region: Although CICH, UNAM Mexico has operated successfully as an ASFA centre, no regional ASFIS cooperative system has yet been established in Latin America or the Caribbean, despite clear needs being demonstrated by many of the countries, and interest expressed by a number of relevant institutions. According to Allen Varley: Politics, lack of funding, national and institutional rivalries, lack of sustained effort by and in the secretariats, and the absence of an accepted plan for ASFA/ASFIS development until 1990, can be cited as contributing factors.
Regarding Argentine commitment, since this Course, ASFIS tools were applied in
the thematic card catalogues developed at the Library of the Institute of Marine Biology
(afterwards INIDEP): ASFIS-2, Subject Categories and Scope Descriptions; ASFIS-4,
Guidelines for Abstracting; ASFIS-5, Guidelines for Indexing; ASFIS-6,
Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Thesaurus and the Serials Monitoring List
1996 INIDEP signs the cooperating agreement with FAO.

5. LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES
ASFA PARTNERS ASFA/2016/ --
(updated March2016)
4 - UN Co-sponsoring ASFA Partners
12 - International ASFA Partners
50 - National ASFA Partners
1 - Publishing ASFA Partner (total= 67)
PARTNER DATE OF JOINING NATIONAL ASFA PARTNERS FROM
LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES
México
Dirección General de Bibliotecas (DGB)
Universidad Nacional Autonóma de Mexico (UNAM)
1978
Argentina
Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo Pesquero
(INIDEP)
1996
Chile
Instituto de Fomento Pesquero (IFOP)
Cuba
Centro de Investigaciones Pesqueras (CIP)
Ministerio de la Industria Pesquera (MIP)
Peru
Instituto del Mar del Perú (IMARPE)
2000
Brazil
Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP)
Instituto Oceanográfico
2001
Uruguay
Instituto de Investigaciones Pesqueras (IIP)
Ecuador
Instituto Nacional de Pesca (INP)
2003

6. Starting the year Important years for Latin American libraries and librarians on their way to improving marine information access.
At a regional level, since February 2001, the INIDEP Librarians (Cosulich-Silvoni- De Wild), developed a network of Latin American Group of Fisheries Information Centres and Libraries.
for the IAMSLIC Conference in Mazatlán, Mexico, a paper is presented: “Aspects of international cooperation in marine research focusing on documentary resources in South America” (Cosulich-Silvoni, 2003)

7. 2002 ASFA Training Course on WWW-ISIS-ASFA software for the first time for cooperating Latin American countries (18-23 March, Viña del Mar, Chile)
Participants and FAO instructors visiting FRV Aldebarán from IFOP, in Valparaíso, Chile. Right: Richard Pepe, Luciana Lombardi (FAO-ASFA) and José Cort (FAO-FIDI)

8. 2003 28° ASFA Advisory Board Meeting La Havana, Cuba, 15-18 July

9. 2004 - Highlights of ASFA Expansion in LA.
During this past 4 years, FAO showed great interest in stretching ASFA to Latin partners. This stage started with an enthusiastic Dr. José Cort (FAO-FIDI) visiting some countries of the Region in the year 2001 (Perú- partner 2001, Brasil and Uruguay and Ecuador-2003), and in the year 2004, six Latin National Coordinators gathered at INIDEP (Argentina) that hosts the 29° ASFA Board Meeting June 29-July 2, for the first time in South America with 25 participants.
The Mini ASFA Meetings were proposed as Trust Fund proposal (ref ASFA/2006/ 73)
Short report prepared for IAMSLIC Newsletter-July 2004:
“A growing band for fishery documents
from Latin America: 29th Annual ASFA Board
Meeting in Mar del Plata, Argentina,2004”

10. 2010 Meeting Dates in INIDEP, Mar del Plata, Argentina: 17 to 21 October - 36th IAMSLIC Annual Conference. 22 to 23 October - 2nd Latin American Regional Meeting 25 to 26 October - First Latin American Mini-ASFA Meeting.

11. 2011 -ASFA Advisory Board Meeting, Instituto Nacional de Pesca (INP), Guayaquil, Ecuador, 5-9 Sept.
2013 -ASFA Advisory Board Meeting, IMARPE Callao, Lima, Perú, Sept.
2014- An ASFA Training Course was held for 11 institutions from Ecuador, July 1 – 4, 2014, INP,. Guayaquil, Ecuador, Instructor: Marco Montes

12. INIDEP- ASFA related activities Latin American-ASFA related activities Our INIDEP Library annual planning includes promotion all together of resources and opportunities in marine sciences for scientists and librarians, in Argentina and the Latin American Region, that includes: IAMSLIC, ASFA, OceanDocs, Aquatic Commons and SIDALC-IICA. Advise on the ASFA input System and how to become members was always provided to Latin American countries and regarding IAMSLIC memberships

13. Tools developed at INIDEP for Spanish speaking partners: a list of descriptors from the ASFA Thesaurus (FAO, 2009) that are in use for the INIDEP databases are constantly translated into Spanish (according to the words used in Argentina); the List has today 919 descriptors and it is distributed among interest groups. Training of Staff: the first training was taken over by FAO in Rome. Input process: since June 2004, the records were sent to the publisher at that moment- CSA (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts). Always thankful to Mrs. Luciana Lombardi (FAO) for all her patience in explaining and correcting the batches Training on ASFA usage to INIDEP scientists and librarians: course on “Tips on marine and fisheries documentation information resources” where we include our own databases, open access repositories and ASFA

14. Monitoring Titles:How much has the Latin American region monitored
Monitoring Titles:How much has the Latin American region monitored ? frequency?
Historically, Mexico, the UNAM started inputting serials from the region until new Latin partners joined ASFA.
There are two important countries not included in ASFA: Venezuela and Colombia, thanks to the Chilean partner it is included now Intropica from Colombia and Revista Saber and Croizatia from Venezuela
For INIDEP, from the time started in 1996, the amount of serials has diminished because of National Science and Technology evaluation policies, those scientists within the System tend to publish only in high impact factor journals (ISI) and thus the national journals become weaker and finally with no support they close.

15. Trust Fund proposals: How much has the Latin American region participated ?
INIDEP presented only 2 proposals but both were finally withdrawn.
Trust Fund for Scanners supply - Cuba?
2003- Mexico- Translation into Spanish ASFIS ref series
2004- Argentina- FAO Development Project Documents
2006- Ecuador- Elaboration of Database- request of PC’s
and printer and training
2011- Argentina- Digitization-OA- input of historical journal
2011- Chile- Scanning and input document
2012- Ecuador- Collaborating centres to enhance ASFA in
Ecuador- Training

16. Contributions to the ASFA Database: Input Centres
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ASFA DATABASE BY PARTNERS ASFA/2015/ 76 (Records /2015 and Serials Monitored 2010/9/2015)
Contributions to the ASFA Database: Input Centres
Serials Monitored
Centre
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
Argentina 65 32 52 43 81 47 70 72 60 17 16
Brazil
123
206 58 21 26
159 29 87 57 39 2
Chile 80
1122
141
129 66 92 27 68 8 24 25
Cuba 15 23 36 88 20 31
168 35 5 3
Ecuador 34 42
156
111 22
Mexico
122
209
171
219
239
165
119
339
240 96 63 64
Peru 50 54 19 18 13 28
Uruguay 40 77 95
140
102
108
112
104

17.  Make sure you have librarians
Some results of cooperation: visibility and partial full text access to Argentine national scientific production (aprox 1300 records); usage of ASFIS indexing tools; monitoring of national specialized serials; expert community; access to ASFA Database
Food for thought: interesting new tool to refresh or renew our institutional participation within ASFA (Generic_ASFA_Presentation.ppt (Halifax 2015) ASFA: Why it is important ?)
Recommendation for our institutions, in order to give and/or improve information access for the protection of the marine environment:
 Make sure you have IAMSLIC librarians
 Make sure you have ASFA Database access in your country
 Make sure your country is an IOC member
Make sure your national scientific production is Open Access
 Make sure you have librarians

18. REFERENCES
Varley, Allen ASFA: The First Twenty Years. An outline history of
Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts, Paris, IOC/INF-994, 70 pp.
Cosulich, G A growing band for fishery documents from Latin America: the 29th Annual ASFA Board Meeting in Mar del Plata, Argentina. IAMSLIC Newsletter-July.
Cosulich, G Latin America: Building Regional and International Alliances among Marine Libraries (unpublished). Presented at the UNEP Second Intergovernmental Review Meeting of the GPA (IGR-2), Oct. 2006, Beijing

19. Sincere thanks to the ASFA Secretariat, to ProQuest
Congratulations to ASFA for 45 years of continuity
and thank you all for
sharing your expertise and friendship
with me
Sincere thanks to the ASFA Secretariat, to ProQuest
and to the ASFA colleagues!!!!
Guillermina Cosulich- Mar del Plata, Argentina- September 2016, Hanoi, Vietnam