RELEASE 5 MANUAL FOR LIBRARIANS

In response to our annual survey of COUNTER members, one librarian said, “please stop talking in that technical way”. Another librarian said, “the online tutorials are good, but my preference is to read information”. With these comments in mind we set about creating a manual for librarians. A written guide with clear and non-technical language.

We found an excellent author to help us, John Hendry whose specialty is presenting complex matter in clear and simple terms. Our wonderful experts from the COUNTER Executive Committee reviewed the drafts to ensure that although written in a non-technical way, the manual is technically accurate.

The manual takes time to prepare, and therefore we are publishing it in a modular way. We will be making each module available to you as soon as it is ready. We have the first module ready now for you to download and use. This module is all about books. You will see:

• the key metrics that show activity for each book.
• most importantly, how to calculate usage per book — regardless of how the platform presents its books.
• the three main COUNTER reports relevant to books.
• how to track trends by comparing the correct figures between Release 4 and Release 5 reports.

You can download the PDF

The next module is about journal usage data, and we aim to publish it in the next couple of months. Please do let us know if there are any  themes you would like us to cover in future modules in the series.