**News Release from COUNTER:
Since its launch in January 2003, over 30 major vendors, both publishers
and intermediaries, have joined the official Register of COUNTER
Compliant vendors, which is available on the COUNTER website at
http://www.projectCounter.org. These vendors include major learned
societies as well as the leading commercial publishers of journals and
databases. The journal publishers now on the Register account for over
50% of the annual output of articles currently included in the Science
Citation Index. This is a measure of the enormous impact that COUNTER is
already having.
The apparent simplicity of the Usage Reports specified in the COUNTER
Code of Practice does not imply that it is an easy task for vendors to
comply with their specifications. Indeed, several vendors on the
Register continue to have problems with the format and presentation of
their COUNTER usage reports. COUNTER has set a testing standard and we
are actively working with these vendors to enable them to comply fully.
The COUNTER library test sites, set up in February 2004, monitor the
vendors' usage reports and have been providing very useful feedback on
them.
Based on advice from libraries and vendors, we have decided to improve
the COUNTER compliance process in two ways. First, vendor products,
rather than vendors, will be registered as COUNTER compliant: this
reflects reality. Few vendors will be COUNTER compliant for all their
online products and services. Second, vendors seeking to be added to the
COUNTER Register will be required to provide at least one of the COUNTER
library test sites with access to their usage reports for up to three
months before being added to the Register.
These procedures are published on the COUNTER website
(http://www.projectCounter.org) and are effective from 1 August 2004.
They will enable COUNTER to provide more support to vendors during the
compliance process and to provide customers with more precise
information on compliance status.
**About COUNTER:
COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources) is a
multi-agency initiative 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.
**For more information, please contact:
Peter Shepherd
Project Director - COUNTER
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