**COUNTER News Release**

Code of Practice adopted by Elsevier-ScienceDirect

Elsevier, a multiple media publisher of scientific, technical and medical information, has signed a declaration of compliance of the usage reports for its product ScienceDirect, with the international COUNTER Code of Practice (Release 1), which governs the recording and exchange of online usage data. The COUNTER Code of Practice is supported by librarians, publishers and intermediaries worldwide, as well as by their professional organizations. It promotes the credible, consistent and compatible measurement of the usage data from online information resources.

Eefke Smit, Managing Director of ScienceDirect, who has been nominated to the Board of Directors of COUNTER, said: "Participation in COUNTER and particularly compliance with its Release 1 Code of Practice will help us further meet and understand librarian information needs. COUNTER facilitates providing usage data in a way that is most meaningful to them while providing us usage data we can use to continually improve our products. What this comes down to is better customer service and we are thrilled about it."

Peter Shepherd, COUNTER Project Director, said "We are delighted that Elsevier is now providing usage reports that comply with Code of Practice. Their 1800+ journals represent a very significant increase in the number of titles for which COUNTER compliant usage reports are now available. Elsevier has been a strong supporter of the COUNTER initiative since it was launched in 2002 and these reports are a further indication of the company's commitment to improving industry standards for online usage data. Librarians will welcome this news.' 


About COUNTER
COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources) is a multi-agency, not-for-profit organization whose objective is to develop and maintain a single, internationally accepted, extendible Code of Practice that allows the usage of online information products and services to be measured more consistently.

The definitive Register of COUNTER-compliant vendors is available on the COUNTER website (http://www.projectCounter.org). Only vendors and usage reports included on this list should be regarded as being COUNTER compliant.

About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. Working in partnership with the global science and health communities, the company publishes more than 1800 journals and 2200 new books per year, in addition to offering a suite of innovative products, such as ScienceDirect. (http://www.sciencedirect.com) and MDConsult (http://www.mdconsult.com), bibliographic databases, online reference works and subject specific portals.

Elsevier (http://www.Elsevier.com) is a global company headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and has offices worldwide. The company is part of the Reed Elsevier Group plc (http://www.reedelsevier.com) a world-leading publisher and information provider. Operating in the science and medical, legal, education and business-to-business sectors, Reed Elsevier provides high-quality and flexible information solutions to users, with increasing emphasis on the Internet as a means of delivery. Reed Elsevier's ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).


Contacts:
Elsevier
Marthyn Borghuis
Science Direct
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COUNTER
Peter Shepherd
Project Director - COUNTER
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Note: There is a freely accessible demo version of the Elsevier Customer Usage Reporting site available at: <http://usagereports.elsevier.com>  username: demo password: demo