Join us at the first ever COUNTER Conference, running alongside our Annual General Meeting on 16 May 2024. This online event will focus on sharing best practices for usage metrics and we have a great line up of speakers - take a look and register through our event page.

The conference is a free event exclusively for COUNTER members, including people who work at libraries affiliated with consortia that are COUNTER members.

For more information about COUNTER and how to join, please visit projectcounter.org/become-member.

We are seeking sponsors for the COUNTER conference, to help us ensure this new event is successful and valuable for the whole community. Sponsors will have their names and branding displayed prominently on event pages, slides and in newsletters, as well as during breaks (though as we're online-only, attendees will have to supply their own coffee).

If you can help support us, drop a line to [log in to unmask]" style="color:#00a1de;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[log in to unmask].

COUNTER is launching a project to revise the Robots and Crawlers exclusion list. If you are a report provider included in the Registry and are able to help us by providing the list of bots which sent traffic to your platform in the period April 2023-March 2024, identified using e.g. Google Analytics bot detection tools or Cloudflare logs, please get in touch with [log in to unmask]" style="color:#00a1de;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[log in to unmask].

Libraries and consortia interested in automated SUSHI harvesting of COUNTER usage stats are invited to try out the latest enhancements to CC-PLUS, courtesy of the Kentucky Virtual Library (KYVL).

To request demo space complete the request form at https://kyvl.libwizard.com/f/ccplus-trial. The demo will remain active through 30 June 2024.

CC-PLUS, Consortia Collaborating on a Platform for Library Usage Statistics, had its origins in 2014 in the International Consortium of Library Consortia. Original development, made possible by IMLS grant funds (2017-2021), was led by PALCI and partners. Further development took place in 2022-2023 when KYVL was awarded a LYRASIS Catalyst Fund grant. Active development resumed in February 2024 with funds committed by KYVL.

If you are at the UKSG conference in Glasgow from 8th to 10th April, do look out for Tasha Mellins-Cohen and Siân Harris. Tasha will be part of a group session on "Open infrastructure and standards: small bodies, big impact" and both Tasha and Siân will be available to chat about COUNTER, what we are currently working on and how you can get involved.

One of the questions submitted for our new FAQ page was "I'm an e-resources librarian and I really value normalised metrics. How can I persuade more publishers to offer COUNTER reports?". First off, thank you - it's great to know we're helping our community! There are a few things that you can do to boost COUNTER compliance from your publishing partners. The first is as simple as asking them: some may simply not know that you want these metrics. If they need information, just introduce them to [log in to unmask]" style="color:#00a1de;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[log in to unmask]. Secondly, you can include a requirement for COUNTER reporting in your license agreements. There's some standard terminology in section 10.1 of the Code of Practice. Lastly, you can collaborate with your fellow librarians to help show just how widespread the demand for COUNTER reporting is!

If there's a question you think we need to include in the FAQ, the form is still open at https://forms.gle/YHENxaKpTHHfeZMh9