The Open Access Association? EAHIL's new model for sustainability.

From the abstract: Objective: To discover a governance structure and a business model for the European Association for Health Information and Libraries (EAHIL) which will be economically sustainable in the medium term, arresting a long-term gradual decline in membership numbers and implementing new revenue streams to sustain association activity. Methodology: Reviewed survival strategies of other professional associations, investigated potential of emerging interactive web technologies, investigated alternative revenue streams based around the 'franchise' of the annual EAHIL conferences and workshops. A fully worked-through and costed alternative structure was produced, based on abolition of the subscription, web-based procedures and functions, increased income from advertising and sponsorship and a large measure of member participation and engagement....Results: The new financial model has proved itself sustainable on the basis of the first 2 years' operations. The long-term gradual decline in membership was reversed, with membership numbers trebling across the EAHIL region....There are also important questions about scalability-diseconomies of scale probably limit the applicability of the overall open access model to larger associations.