Launched in March 2002, COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources) is a UK-based international initiative that governs the recording and exchange of online usage data. It is designed to serve the needs of both librarians and publishers/aggregators by providing credible and consistent measurement of usage data across online resources. Mike Hoover, ProQuest product manager, is a member of COUNTER’s International Advisory Board.

“We are extremely delighted to be participating in this project. It is an essential component of our usage reporting and invaluable in helping us to understand and meet the requirements of librarians across the globe,” said Steven Hall, ProQuest Senior Vice President, Publishing.

The use of online information resources has grown exponentially in recent years, and producers and purchasers of information have been seeking a more consistent measurement of the use of these resources. Building on a number of important, existing initiatives, COUNTER has set out to achieve this.

By signing the declaration of compliance, ProQuest has agreed to use the COUNTER code of practice (Release 1) for the recording and exchange of online usage data for databases provided to users on its flagship ProQuest® platform and for the PCI and PCI-FT databases on its Chadwyck-Healey™ platform. ProQuest participated in the code’s development.

COUNTER will initially focus on journals and databases, types of content that have been available online for some time. They are not only the major items in most library material budgets but also have a core of well-accepted definitions and content structures. This is not the case, for example, with e-books; these and other types of content will be covered in subsequent releases of the Code of Practice.

Using COUNTER, librarians will be able to compare usage statistics from different vendors, make better-informed purchasing decisions; and plan infrastructure more effectively. Publishers and intermediaries will be able to provide data to customers in a format they want, compare the relative usage of different delivery channels, aggregate data for a customer that is using multiple delivery channels, and learn more about genuine usage patterns.

Based in the UK, COUNTER is an international not-for-profit organization whose objective is to facilitate the recording and exchange of online usage statistics via an accepted Code of Practice, which will benefit librarians, publishers and intermediaries by providing consistency of data. For more information, see http://www.projectcounter.org

ProQuest Information and Learning is a world leader in collecting, organizing, and publishing information worldwide for researchers, faculty, and students in libraries and schools. Known widely for its strength in business and economics, general reference, humanities, social sciences, and STM content, the company develops premium databases comprising periodicals, newspapers, dissertations, out-of-print books, and other scholarly information from more than 8,500 publishers worldwide.  Users access the information through the ProQuest® Web-based online information system, Chadwyck-Healey™ electronic and microform resources, UMI® microform and print reference products, eLibrary™ and SIRS® educational resources, and XanEdu™ online faculty and student resources.  For more information about ProQuest Information and Learning, visit www.il.proquest.com.