COUNTER Code of Practice Release 2 draft now available for comment

["Gillingham Emily" <Emily.Gillingham@oxon.blackwellpublishing.com>]

The draft of Release 2 of the COUNTER Code of Practice is now available
for comment and can be accessed on the COUNTER website at
http://www.projectcounter.org

This draft refines and clarifies the specifications that vendors must meet
to have their online usage reports designated COUNTER-compliant. Comments
will be accepted until 30 September 2004 and the final version of Release
2 will be published in January 2005. The existing Release 1 will remain
valid until January 2006.  Comments should be sent to the Project
Director, Dr Peter T Shepherd, at pshepherd@projectCounter.org

--About Release 2--

Release 2 of the COUNTER Code of Practice has been developed with input
from librarian focus groups, from the COUNTER International Advisory Board
and from other sources over the last year. A very strong message received
from all groups is that COUNTER should concentrate on ensuring that
vendors can provide customers with a reliable set of basic usage reports
that are consistent and compatible. It is not COUNTER's objective to
develop an ever-expanding list of increasingly detailed usage reports.
This philosophy is reflected in the scope and timetable for Release 2.

The draft text of Release 2 has been approved by the COUNTER Executive
Committee. It will continue to focus on journals and databases (a separate
COUNTER Code of Practice for e-books and e-reference works will be
developed during 2004). To avoid confusion, the original format and
structure of Release 1 has been retained as far as possible. Changes in
Release 2 include:

* The complete list of Definitions of Terms Used has been moved from
Section 3 to an Appendix to the Code of Practice. A subset of those
definitions that are specific to the usage reports included in Release 2
has been extracted from this list and is published in Section 3 of the
Code of Practice itself.

* A new 'Journal Report 1a: Number of Successful Full-text Requests in
html and PDF Formats' has been included. This is in response to
unambiguous feedback from the librarian focus groups

* The Level 2 usage reports from Release 1 (Journal Report 3 and Journal
Report 4) have been moved to Appendix F to Release 2. These more detailed
reports are not a requirement for Counter compliance, but are provided by
several vendors and are valued by many customers.

* The protocols used for recording and reporting usage when an
intermediary aggregator or gateway is involved have been consolidated in
the new Table 2.

--About COUNTER--

COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources) is a
multi-agency initiative 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.  COUNTER is actively supported by the international
community of librarians and publishers, and by their professional
organisations.

For more information, please contact:
Peter Shepherd
Project Director - COUNTER 
mailto:pshepherd@projectCounter.org