LISNews: Librarian News

Launched in March 2002, COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources) is an international initiative serving librarians, publishers and intermediaries by setting standards that facilitate the recording and reporting of online usage statistics in a consistent, credible and compatible way. The first COUNTER Code of Practice, covering online journals and databases, was published in 2003. COUNTER.s coverage was extended further with the launch of the Code of Practice for online books and reference works in 2006. The body of COUNTER compliant usage statistics has steadily grown as more and more vendors have adopted the COUNTER Codes of Practice. This has contributed to the new discipline of usage bibliometrics and a great deal of work is underway to try to establish .value metrics. associated with usage, in which the COUNTER compliant statistics play an increasingly important role..