Re: Compliance with the COUNTER Code of Practice

[kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de]

Dear Emily, dear Peter, you write below

> First, vendor products, rather than vendors, will be registered as
> COUNTER compliant: this reflects reality. Few vendors will be COUNTER
> compliant for all their online products and services.

to which I would add: "Furthermore, some vendors will only provide COUNTER
statistics for the more costly of several Licensing Options." However, I
recognize that this will be regarded as a slightly "partisan formulation"  
that has no chance to get accepted by the Board. And probably it indeed
should not be mentioned in the COUNTER compliance protocols because it
could even encourage just the sort of behaviour that is so clearly counter
to the spirit of Project COUNTER ...

Anyway, may I ask that - in the interest of clarity and equal treatment of
all vendors - in the Register of Vendors resp. Products/Services
designated as COUNTER-compliant, for

	Elsevier-ScienceDirect 

you add in parentheses "does not apply to ScienceDirect Web Editions",
just as you did for

	Wiley (applies to Enhanced Access License Only). 

Note that for Elsevier the official product name is "ScienceDirect(R) Web
Editions", cf.

http://www.info.sciencedirect.com/licensing_options/web_editions/index.shtml

so it is easy to mistakenly assume that ScienceDirect as the generic term
includes "ScienceDirect Web Editions" also.

The two cases are quite analogous except for the fact that with Wiley, you
even have to pay (10% for an add-on to print, 100% for e-only) for a
"Basic Access License" that comes without statistics (i.e. where
statistics is collected on a routine basis, but is only available to Wiley
staff not to the customer), while Web Editions access is "free with print"
(although it makes little sense to assert that anything comes for free
with this publisher considering the rather high price tags attached to its
products).

Thank you very much in advance,

Bernd-Christoph K�mper, Stuttgart University Library

-- 
Bernd-Christoph K�mper
Universit�tsbibliothek Stuttgart, Holzgartenstr. 16, 70174 Stuttgart
- Fachreferat f�r Physik / Koordinierung elektronischer Ressourcen -
Postanschrift: Postfach 104941, 70043 Stuttgart, 
Tel. ++49 711 121-3510, Fax -3502, E-Mail: kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de

Gillingham Emily wrote:
> 
> **News Release from COUNTER:
> 
> Since its launch in January 2003, over 30 major vendors, both publishers
> and intermediaries, have joined the official Register of COUNTER
> Compliant vendors, which is available on the COUNTER website at
> http://www.projectCounter.org. These vendors include major learned
> societies as well as the leading commercial publishers of journals and
> databases. The journal publishers now on the Register account for over
> 50% of the annual output of articles currently included in the Science
> Citation Index. This is a measure of the enormous impact that COUNTER is
> already having.
> 
> The apparent simplicity of the Usage Reports specified in the COUNTER
> Code of Practice does not imply that it is an easy task for vendors to
> comply with their specifications. Indeed, several vendors on the
> Register continue to have problems with the format and presentation of
> their COUNTER usage reports. COUNTER has set a testing standard and we
> are actively working with these vendors to enable them to comply fully.
> The COUNTER library test sites, set up in February 2004, monitor the
> vendors' usage reports and have been providing very useful feedback on
> them.
> 
> Based on advice from libraries and vendors, we have decided to improve
> the COUNTER compliance process in two ways. First, vendor products,
> rather than vendors, will be registered as COUNTER compliant: this
> reflects reality. Few vendors will be COUNTER compliant for all their
> online products and services. Second, vendors seeking to be added to the
> COUNTER Register will be required to provide at least one of the COUNTER
> library test sites with access to their usage reports for up to three
> months before being added to the Register.
> 
> These procedures are published on the COUNTER website
> (http://www.projectCounter.org) and are effective from 1 August 2004.
> They will enable COUNTER to provide more support to vendors during the
> compliance process and to provide customers with more precise
> information on compliance status.