CAUL signs open letter to publishers to expedite compliance with COUNTER Release 5

Topics CAUL Business

Members of the International Alliance of Research Library Associations (IARLA), alongside a number of international academic library organisations, have signed an open letter calling for the expedition to Release 5 of the COUNTER Code of Practice.

Release 5 (R5) of the COUNTER Code of Practice, will enable content providers to produce consistent, comparable and credible usage data for online content. This allows librarians and others to compare the usage data they receive, and to understand and demonstrate the value of the electronic resources to which they subscribe.

Release 5 reduces the complexity of the Code of Practice and offers a number of improvements:

  • Greater consistency in report layout and between different formats
  • More consistency in vocabulary and terminology
  • Fewer reports and metric types but greater flexibility to compare and combine
  • Flexibility to access standard reports that meet common use cases in addition to reports that can be filtered to meet highly specific use cases

Link to PDF letter (pdf)

About IARLA

IARLA is a platform for collaboration amongst its members, who work together on a voluntary basis to develop agreed positions in support of an emerging international research library agenda and open scholarship. The Alliance is governed by its founding membership of five research library organisations, and operates presently as an informal network without incorporated status or membership fees.

The members of IARLA are:

  • Association of Research Libraries (ARL)
  • Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL)
  • Council of Australian University Libraries (CAUL)
  • Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER)
  • Research Libraries UK (RLUK)
Author Harry Rolf
Last modified 17 July 2020