Launched in March 2002, COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources) is
an international initiative serving librarians, publishers and intermediaries
by setting standards that facilitate the recording and reporting of online
usage statistics in a consistent, credible and compatible way. The first
COUNTER Code of Practice, covering online journals and databases, was published
in 2003. COUNTER.s coverage was extended further with the launch of the Code of
Practice for online books and reference works in 2006. The body of COUNTER
compliant usage statistics has steadily grown as more and more vendors have
adopted the COUNTER Codes of Practice. This has contributed to the new discipline
of usage bibliometrics and a great deal of work is underway to try to establish
.value metrics. associated with usage, in which the COUNTER compliant
statistics play an increasingly important role..
COUNTER does more than just set
the standards for usage reports; we are co-operating with a number of
organizations to develop a range of usage-related research and services. In 2006 COUNTER carried out research,
sponsored by JISC (the UK Joint Information Systems Committee) on the effects
of publisher platforms on usage and we are currently collaborating with the UK
Serials Group on the possible development of a new Journal Usage Factor metric.
Summary reports on both these projects can be found on the COUNTER website at http://www.projectcounter.org/news.html . COUNTER
has also worked with NISO on SUSHI (Standardised Usage Harvesting Initiative)
to develop a protocol to facilitate the automated harvesting and consolidation
of usage statistics from different vendors. This protocol may be found on the
NISO website at http://www.niso.org/schemas/sushi/index.html#COUNTER
COUNTER brings the following benefits to librarians, publishers and intermediaries:
Librarians are able to compare usage statistics from different
vendors; derive useful metrics such as cost-per-use; make better-informed
purchasing decisions; plan infrastructure more effectively.
Publishers and intermediaries
are able to: provide data to customers in a format they want; compare the
relative usage of different delivery channels; aggregate data for customers
using multiple delivery channels; learn more about genuine usage patterns.
Future objectives
While COUNTER has greatly improved
the reliability and usability of online vendor usage statistics, there is still
much for us to do, not only to help vendors further improve their usage reports
and to help librarians to make sense of them, but also to keep the COUNTER
codes up to date with changes in the online delivery of information. Our future
objectives fall into three broad categories. First, to improve further the
reliability of the core COUNTER data and extend scope of the Code of Practice
beyond journals, databases and books. Second, to continue to increase the
number of COUNTER compliant vendors. Third, to work with other industry organizations
to facilitate the implementation of COUNTER and develop metrics based on the
COUNTER data that are of practical value to both librarians and vendors.
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Other initiatives on usage statistics
COUNTER has been built on, and liaises with, a number of important,
ongoing industry initiatives that have done much valuable work to define
customer requirements for usage statistics from vendors. Most notable in
this context are:
ARL New Measures Initiative
http://www.arl.org/stats/newmeas/newmeas.html
The ARL Association of Research Libraries) New Measures Initiative has been
set up in response to the following two needs: increasing demand for libraries
to demonstrate outcomes/impacts in areas important to the institution, and
increasing pressure to maximise use of resources.
Of particular interest is the work associated with the E-metrics portion of this
initiative, which is an effort to explore the feasibility of defining and collecting data
on the use and value of electronic resources.
ICOLC Guidelines for Statistical Measures of usage of
Web-based Information Resources
http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/2001webstats.htm
The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) has been in existence since 1996. The
Coalition is an international, informal group currently comprising over 160 library
consortia in North America, Australia, Asia and Africa. ICOLC has developed a set of
Guidelines for Statistical Measures of Usage of Web-based Information Resources. Revised
in 2001, the Guidelines specify a set of minimum requirements for usage data, and
also provide guidance on privacy, confidentiality, access, delivery and report formats.
NISO/SUSHI
http://www/niso.org/schemas/sushi/index.html#COUNTER
NISO is the National Information Standards Organization of the United States. COUNTER has worked with NISO on SUSHI (Standardized Usage Harvesting Initiative) to develop a protocol to facilitate the automated harvesting and consolidation of usage statistics from different vendors. This protocol is now available and may be found on the NISO/SUSHI website above.
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