**First vendors announce compliance with the COUNTER Code of Practice**
Blackwell Publishing, ISI and Oxford University Press have announced that the online usage reports they supply to customers now comply with Release 1 of the COUNTER Code of Practice. All three companies have signed formal declarations of compliance and the list of usage reports covered by each publisher may be found on the COUNTER website at http://www.projectCounter.org
Jill Cousins, Product Manager for Blackwell Synergy, said "We are delighted to be amongst the first publishers to offer COUNTER-compliant data. We see this as a significant step to making sure online journal usage is transparent to librarians and comparable across different titles and subject areas."
Martin Richardson, Publishing Director of Oxford University Press Journals, said "As a pioneer of the COUNTER initiative, OUP is proud and delighted to be one of the first publishers to make COUNTER compliant usage statistics available for its online journals. The COUNTER initiative fits well with our goal of providing the library community with the functionality and feedback they tell us they need, and we look forward to supporting the continuing development of the COUNTER Code of Practice over the coming years."
A number of other leading vendors have declared their intention to become COUNTER compliant in the course of 2003 and are working towards this goal. They include:
American Institute of Physics
BMJ Publishing Group
CABI International
EBSCO
Elsevier Science
Extenza
Ingenta
Institute of Physics Publishing
Nature Publishing Group
Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins
HighWire Press
From May 2003, a definitive list of COUNTER-compliant vendors will be maintained on the COUNTER website. Only vendors and usage reports included on this list should be regarded as being COUNTER compliant.
Peter Shepherd, COUNTER Project Director, said "We are thrilled that some vendors have already been able to comply with the Code of Practice and look forward to this number growing rapidly over the coming months. We anticipate that, by the end of 2003, customers will be receiving COUNTER-compliant usage reports covering a significant proportion of journal and database vendors."
For more information, please contact:
Peter Shepherd
Project Director - COUNTER
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