COUNTER Code of Practice to be released on 14 January 2003
COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources) is a multi-agency project whose objective is to develop a single, internationally accepted, extendible Code of Practice that will allow the usage of online information products and services to be measured more consistently.
At its meeting on 5 December 2002 the COUNTER Steering Group agreed the text of Release 1 of the COUNTER Code of Practice, which is now being prepared for publication on the COUNTER website where it will be released on 14 January 2003.
The Code of Practice specifies in detail the requirements that vendors must meet to have their online usage reports designated COUNTER-compliant. There will be only one valid version of the Code of Practice at any given time, but different levels of compliance will be possible. Release 1 will focus on journals and databases, as these products are not only the most significant budget item for libraries, but also they have been available online for some time and have a core of well-accepted definitions and content structures. The Code of practice will be systematically extended to cover other categories of publications, such as e-books.
COUNTER is actively supported by the international community of librarians and publishers, and by their professional organisations, including:
- AAP, Association of American Publishers
- ALPSP, The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
- ARL, Association of Research Libraries
- ASA, Association of Subscription Agents and Intermediaries
- BIC/EDItEUR
- Jisc, Joint Information Systems Committee
- NCLIS, National Commission on Libraries and Information Science
- NISO, National Information Standards Organization
- PA, The Publishers Association
- STM, International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers
- UKSG, United Kingdom Serials Group
The development of COUNTER is being supervised by an Executive Committee chaired by Richard Gedye of Oxford University Press. The Project Director, responsible for day-to-day management is Peter Shepherd who should be contacted for further information.