Project Counter "Code of Practice" release 1 now available

[Ann Okerson <aokerson@pantheon.yale.edu>]

COUNTER Code of Practice released on 14 January 2003

The full text of Release 1 of the COUNTER Code of Practice was published
on the COUNTER website (www.projectCounter.org ) on 14 January 2003, where
it is available in both html and PDF formats. Users are invited to access
the document on this site.  The Code is available at
http://www.projectcounter.org/code_practice.html

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
focuses on journals and databases, as these products are not only the most
significant budget items for libraries, but they have also 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 (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.

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
(pshepherd@projectCounter.org), who should be contacted for further
information.

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