Draft Release 3 of COUNTER Code now available for comment

["Gillingham, Emily - Oxford" <emily.gillingham@wiley.com>]

- Draft Release 3 of the COUNTER Code of Practice for Journals
and Databases now available for comment -

Since the current Release 2 of the COUNTER Code of Practice for
Journals and Databases was published in 2005, there has been not
only a regular flow of requests from users for further
enhancements, but also advances in technology that can either
have an impact on the COUNTER usage statistics, or can be applied
to improve the COUNTER usage reports.

In response to these developments, COUNTER has been working to
produce Release 3 of its Code of Practice for Journals and
Databases, which will ensure that the Code=92s reports can continue
to remain relevant and informative in the changing environment in
which usage statistics are both generated and used.

The first Draft of Release 3 is now available for comment and can
be accessed on the COUNTER website at
http://www.projectcounter.org/code_practice.html This new Release
has been developed with input, via Focus Groups and other
channels, from publishers, vendors, intermediaries, librarians
and library consortium managers.

The Draft Release 3 will be available for comment until 31 May
2008.  All interested parties are encouraged to review the
document and to submit their comments to the COUNTER Project
Director (pshepherd@projectCounter.org ).  It is planned to
publish the final version of this Release of the Code of Practice
before 30 June 2008, for implementation in early 2009.

The main objectives of Release 3 of the Code of Practice are:

1. to improve further the reliability of the COUNTER usage
reports by incorporating new protocols designed to mitigate the
potentially inflationary effects on usage statistics of federated
search engines, internet robots, crawlers, etc.

2. to provide tools that will facilitate the consolidation,
management and analysis of the COUNTER usage statistics

3. to improve the COUNTER usage reports for library consortia

4. to improve the reporting of the usage of journal archives.

About COUNTER

COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources)
is a multi-agency initiative whose objective is to develop a set
of internationally accepted, extendible Codes of Practice that
will allow the usage of online information products and services
to be measured more consistently. The COUNTER Code of Practice
for Journals and Databases is now widely implemented. COUNTER is
actively supported by the international community of librarians,
intermediaries, publishers and vendors, and by their professional
organisations.

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