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News Release____________________

August 2002

 Online Survey: librarians should act now to have their say

The COUNTER online survey will close on15 August 2002. Librarians
should fill it in at the COUNTER website: www.projectCounter.org ,
where it may be accessed, along with the full text of the Usage
Reports. The response so far has been excellent and many hundreds of
librarians have already completed the survey since it was opened in
early July. Those who have not yet done so, are urged to act quickly to
ensure that all opinions are heard.

Survey responses to date show an impressive global spread, with 59%
from North America, 25% from Europe and 8% from Australasia. The
majority of the respondents (67%) have been from Academic/Higher
Education institutions, with 10% public librarians, 7% corporate, 5%
government and 4% health/hospital.

COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources) is a
new, 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. The proposed Usage Reports will be an important
feature of that  Code of Practice.

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 a Steering Group
chaired by Richard Gedye of Oxford University Press. The Project
Director, responsible for day-to-day management is Peter Shepherd
([log in to unmask]), who should be contacted for further
information.