Librarian in Black Blog – Sarah Houghton-Jan

If you collect database or eBook statistics for your library, then you will certainly be interested in COUNTER’s Release 3.  COUNTER is a way for libraries to be sure that all of the vendors are counting the same things–that a page view in one database means a page view in another, or a search in one is a search in another.  It’s been so hard for so many years to report accurate statistics because the vendors count things so differently.  I have always used the number of searches as a way to compare one database to another, as everything else–downloads, file accesses, record accesses, page views, etc. are so variable.  Vendors who are compliant adhere to the COUNTER Code of Practice for Journals and Databases (or the Code of Practice for Books and Reference Works).

All libraries should encourage all of your vendors to be COUNTER compliant if they aren’t already.  You can see a list of compliant vendors here: http://www.projectcounter.org/compliantvendors.html Release 3 compliant vendors are listed in the PDF linked under Section 1A: http://www.projectcounter.org/r3/cv.pdf

Starting September 1st, unless vendors were compliant with Release 3, they were no longer COUNTER compliant.   A lot of common public library database vendors are only Release 2-compliant, and are not listed as yet compliant with Release 3.  Examples: EBSCO, Gale, HW Wilson, Morningstar, Proquest, etc.  It seems that the smaller vendors got on board faster, and all the bigger ones are still waiting.  Most are due for re-audit in November 2009, so check back then to see who passed and who didn’t.