The creeping erosion of the COUNTER Code of Practice is not accept

[bernd-christoph.kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de]

Dear Colleagues,

It is not acceptable that large vendors like Ingenta, Swets and
Wiley for their usage statistics refer to the COUNTER Code of
Practice and claim to be COUNTER compliant although they have
missed to adapt to Release 2 valid since January 2006 and thereby
are noncompliant now for more than a year.

Three examples:

Ingenta:

Library Services Overview

> http://www.ingentaconnect.com/download/ingentaconnect/Library_services_summary.pdf
- COUNTER, SUSHI and OpenURL compliant
How to ... download free COUNTER-Compliant Usage Statistics
> http://www.ingentaconnect.com/about/librarians/resourcezone/howto_counter
Swets:

"The reporting tool is also fully compliant with the latest
COUNTER industry standards and can be easily merged with other
data."

Elsewhere they explicitely refer to "level 2 compliance".
Unfortunately, "level 2" referred to optional reports in Release
1, not to agreement with the current Release 2, cf. press release
of Oct 15, 2003, on their website.

Another Swets publication, "The Local Source April 2006", in
connection with the product ScholarlyStats, for which Swets acts
as distribution partner, tells us under the heading "The
Swets/MPS Partnership" that also SwetsWise COUNTER JR1 reports
could be integrated in ScholarlyStats. As a reason to support
this product, they write "... usage reports vary greatly in their
layout and format. This does not only affect non-COUNTER
compliant vendors, but also COUNTER vendors who each have their
own "flavour" of COUNTER reports."

Given this statement from a noncompliant vendor, we must insist,
that Release 2 of the COUNTER Code of Practice makes strict
demands on formatting, stricter than it used to be in Release 1.
It is unacceptable that such format specifications are ignored
and that a vendor does not strive to keep compliant with the
actual COUNTER standard, with the implicit justification that
there is a commercial product that claims to iron out such
neglicences.

Swets makes the same claim also in 3rd party products for which
they serve as a distribution partner and host: In the ALJC (ALPSP
Learned Journals Collection) Publishers FAQs,
<http://aljc.swets.com/Publishers/Faq_publishers.html>, we read:

What usage information do I get? For accesses to the collection
via SwetsWise Counter-complaint usage statistics are provided to
both publishers and libraries on a regular basis.

Counter-complaint - this typo accurately characterises the
present deplorable state of affairs. Current usage statistics
only show a superficial similarity with the standard of Release
2, with many divergences in detail. We already alerted Swets to
this in connection with a ALJC trial in mid 2006 and asked them
to change this and make sure that they got COUNTER compliant as
soon as possible again. In addition, we told them that it is
misleading when Swets claims in consortial offers that they are
COUNTER compliant "according to level 2" if this level refers to
a no longer valid standard of 2003. An official reaction of Swets
was never received.

Wiley:

- Products and Services for Librarians, Wiley InterScience
General brochure
> http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/aboutus/forLibrarians.html
Electronic License Options:
Additional benefits include Roaming access, monthly
COUNTER-compliant usage statistics, and preferred rates for
ArticleSelect(TM) Tokens

Wiley claims they are COUNTER compliant for the (current)
Journals but not for the back files that were not included in our
present consortium license. This seems strange as other big
vendors that offer back file sets have also managed to integrate
them into usage reporting and stay COUNTER compliant. (Wiley
tells us they have a problem to consolidate reports for current
and back files and for precursor titles when a name change has
occurred. In response I asked them to forward samples so that one
could have a closer look into this.) As in Germany we have
existing national site license deals with Wiley for several
backfile sets, the argument that our consortium has not licensed
those backfiles is also moot. According to Wiley it is "only a
question of formatting" and they promised to be ready this autumn
(!).

One reservation which always limited Wiley's COUNTER compliance
is the regrettable refusal to provide usage statistics to Basic
Access License Customers. This seems inapprehensible and hardly
acceptable given the fact that the Basic Access License is no
free add-on to print subscriptions but has to be paid with a
surcharge and is even available in connection with e-only
subscriptions. It is our contention that libraries that license
e-only products can expect usage statistics to be delivered with
them as a basic service not as a paid add-on, if a vendor
provides such statistics in the first place.

The arbitrary restriction to contracts that ask libraries to
commit to licenses for complete collections or complete holdings
of an institution with the aim to secure current levels of
subscriptions is certainly against the spirit if not against the
letter of the COUNTER Code of Practice, which says: "For each
compliant product vendors must supply the relevant
COUNTER-compliant usage reports at no additional charge to
customers in order to be designated COUNTER compliant." The only
way to claim there is no violation of the Code is to resort to
the argument not Wiley InterScience were the product but Wiley
InterScience with Enhanced Access License, and Wiley InterScience
with Basic Access License were a different product.

For this reason Wiley was lately only registered as compliant
with the reservation "applies to Enhanced Access License only".
If vendors in general resorted to such strategies than the
requirement to provide usage reports at no additional charge to
customers would be void of any content. Fortunately most do not,
the other exception known to me being Elsevier who also do not
provide statistics for their ScienceDirect Web Editions although
they can at least claim that this is a "free" add-on to print
subscriptions. To avoid misunderstandings: there is nothing wrong
with providing more advanced usage statistics and tools to
display and analyze them for an extra price (Ingenta for example
has done that); my point is that the basic service should be
included for no additional charge (this is what COUNTER obviously
intended).

For Swets the non-observance of the standard is particularly
embarrassing, as one would expect something different from an ISO
9000 certified vendor which has always been engaged for the
development of common standards (and without any doubt has
acquired merits in that), especially as they were the first
agency in 2003 to get compliant with the COUNTER Code of Practice
and are partner in SUSHI, the Standardized Usage Statistics
Harvesting Initiative of NISO. Swets wrote in a press release of
November 2005, that they were the first agency which had
successfully absolved tests to integrate their usage statistics
with ILS vendors. The Statistics transferred in these tests had
all been compliant with the internationally recognized COUNTER
format - that was still correct at the time of the press release
but only two months later no longer the case.

The draft of Release 2 has been available for comment since April
2004 on the COUNTER website. The final version was published in
May 2005, and it became the valid standard to follow on Jan 1,
2006. Time enough for vendors to adjust their procedures
correspondingly and make arrangements to adopt the new standard
beginning in 2006.

In our view, aggregators and agencies like ingenta and Swets have
a special reponsibility to adhere to the standards, as they
bundle on their platforms the statistics of many individual
publishers which depend on them. Libraries, especially if they
negotiate on behalf of consortia, should take care that COUNTER
compliance is written into their contracts and adhered to. At
some point we must achieve the aim that COUNTER statistics from
different vendors are delivered in standard XML format and can be
processed automatically (the aim of SUSHI) - but this can only
work if all adhere to the standard. Obviously, it is necessary
not just to rely on vendors claims but to check this on the
website projectcounter.org, especially if a new release has been
adopted.

Peter Shepherd, Project Director von COUNTER, on two mailing
lists already made clear that COUNTER will not tolerate a misuse
of its name (statement of Jan 24, on the Vendor Based Usage
Statistics Mailing List <USAGE@JISCMAIL.AC.UK> and on
LIS-E-Journals):

"I would like to clarify the situation regarding those vendors
which are, or are not, COUNTER compliant. This is as follows:

1. The only vendors who are COUNTER compliant are those listed in
the Tables on the 'Compliant Vendors' page of the COUNTER website
(www.projectCounter.org ). These lists are definitive and no
other vendors are COUNTER compliant.

2. In the cases of Ingenta and Wiley, both vendors were compliant
with Release 1 of the COUNTER Code of Practice for Journals and
Databases, but are not (yet) compliant with Release 2, which has
been the only valid version of the Code of Practice since January
2006. Neither of these two vendors is currently COUNTER
compliant. I shall contact both to request that they cease to
claim that they are.

3. COUNTER membership is quite different from COUNTER compliance.
Libraries and intermediaries are all eligible for COUNTER
membership. COUNTER is owned by its members. If members wish to
become COUNTER compliant they have to go through the same
compliance procedure as non-members. Not all COUNTER members are,
therefore, COUNTER compliant and not all COUNTER compliant
vendors are COUNTER members.

Peter Shepherd
Director
COUNTER

****

> From a comparison of the current Register of Vendors (Stand:
January 2007) with a saved version of December 2005, that I
retrieved via the Internet Archive - Wayback Machine, I infer
that the following vendors that were in Dec 2005 still listed as
compliant, can currently no longer be regarded as COUNTER
compliant (for those vendors marked with a * I nevertheless found
evidence on their webpages that they still claim to be COUNTER
compliant) (Information current as of Jan 25, 2006):

- Allen Press*
- BioOne
- CSIRO Publishing*
- Geological Society
- Ingenta*
- NRC Research Press*
- Project Muse*
- Public Library of Science*
- Swets Blackwell (now Swets Information Services)*
- Thomson Learning /Gale (now Thomson Gale)**
(**Thomson Gale strives to meet all the requirements as defined
by the usage standards organizations. This includes the
International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) and COUNTER
(Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources).
Currently Thomson Gale is COUNTER compliant level one.)
- Wiley*
- Wolters Kluwer Health (Ovid)***
- Wolters Kluwer Health (Portal Advantage Service)***
- Wolters Kluwer Health (SilverPlatter)***
(***former press releases and reports on their website which
emphasize COUNTER compliance are prone to give the impression
that this is still the case)

I mention this to avoid the impression that I wanted to
arbitrarily single out the three vendors mentioned in the first
part above to black-list them. I have not included in the list
above BMJ Publishing Group (as their publications are apparently
now all hosted by HighWire which is compliant), Extenza (now
Atypon, compliant), IBM SurfAid Analytics (now Coremetrics
SurfAid Analytics, compliant), Springer-KluwerOnline (now
integrated into SpringerLink, compliant), and Taylor & Francis
(now InformaWorld, presumably compliant, because Informa
HealthCare is listed as compliant and InformaWorld claims
compliance on its website - however, I have send them a request
to confirm their status).

That with the coming into effect of Release 2 of the COUNTER Code
of Practice with the 14 listed vendors 30% of those that were
compliant until Dec 2005 dropped out, should give also Project
Counter to think about. On the other hand, it is pleasing to see
that since the end of 2005 a lot of additional vendors (29
together) managed to achieve compliance for some products or
services. We can name here (in alphabetic order): American
Academy of Periodontology, American Anthropological Association,
American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, American
Veterinary Medical Association, ACM, Ashley Publications, Bentham
Science Publishers, Cambridge University Press, CFA Institute,
Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory Press, Duke University Press, East
View Information Services, Elsevier Engineering Information,
Future Drugs, Future Medicine, Informa Healthcare, IEEE,
Institute of Physics Publishing (IoPP), Japan Science &
Technology Agency, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mary Ann Liebert,
MIT press, Micromedia ProQuest, Monash University ePress, Morgan
& Claypool Publishers, OCLC, Peeters Publishers, Symposium
Journals, University of California Press.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my personal opinions,
formed in the context of my responsability as electronic
resources coordinator and negotiator for two consortia. It is not
to be regarded as an official statement on behalf of Stuttgart
University Library or the Consortium Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Best regards,
Bernd-Christoph Kaemper

B.-C. Kaemper
Universitaetsbibliothek Stuttgart
Postfach 104941, 70043 Stuttgart
Tel. 0711 685-64731, 83510
kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de