Measuring the validity of usage reports provided by e book vendors emerging research and opportunities

Measuring the Validity of
Usage Reports Provided
by E-Book Vendors:
Emerging Research and
Opportunities
Aiping Chen-Gaffey
Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, USA
Heather Getsay
Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, USA

A volume in the Advances in Library
and Information Science (ALIS) Book
Series


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Names: Chen-Gaffey, Aiping, 1958- author. | Getsay, Heather, 1973- author.
Title: Measuring the validity of usage reports provided by e-book vendors :
emerging research and opportunities / by Aiping Chen-Gaffey and Heather
Getsay.
Description: Hershey, PA : Information Science Reference, [2018] | Includes
bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017015196| ISBN 9781522532385 (hardcover) | ISBN
9781522532392 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Libraries--Special collections--Electronic books. |
Electronic books--Use studies. | COUNTER (Organization) | Acquisition of
electronic information resources. | Collection management
(Libraries)--Statistical methods.
Classification: LCC Z692.E4 C48 2018 | DDC 025.17/4--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.
loc.gov/2017015196
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Table of Contents

Preface................................................................................................................... vi
Chapter 1
What Is COUNTER and Why Is It Important?.......................................................1
Chapter 2
COUNTER: Standardization of E-Books Statistics..............................................10
Chapter 3
Case Study Part 1: Sorting Out the Data Mess.....................................................20
Chapter 4
Case Study Part 2: Apples, Oranges, and Pears....................................................30
Chapter 5
Case Study Part 3: More Apples, Oranges, and Pears – Interpreting Ebrary,
EBSCO, and Safari Non-COUNTER Reports......................................................55
Chapter 6

COUNTER and Non-COUNTER: Consolidating Vendor-Provided Usage
Reports..................................................................................................................73
Chapter 7
Findings, Discussion, and Recommendations......................................................97
Related Readings............................................................................................... 109
About the Authors............................................................................................. 128
Index................................................................................................................... 129


vi

Preface

Imagine yourself being a collection assessment librarian who conducts a
comprehensive review of usage statistics for different e-book collections.
The usage reports are available from different vendors. In addition to the
challenge of interpreting data, you find it difficult to compare usage of various
collections. Not only do the usage reports look different from various vendors,
but also they differ in data metrics. For example, the usage report(s) from
Vendor A contains a detailed account of usage at title level; Vendor B reports
on usage with its own unique usage metrics, mostly at a collection level; while
Vendor C offers reports with yet a different set of data categories. Some of the
vendors offer a different type of reports, labelled as “COUNTER Reports,”
in addition to their standard usage reports. Although the COUNTER Reports
appear to be more unified across the vendors, they do not always contain the
specific usage information you seek. Also, by a closer review you discover
that even the COUNTER reports vary among the vendors. Unfamiliar with
COUNTER reports, you wonder what are the genuine differences between
the COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports. In short, even before evaluating
the usage data you are faced with the challenge to select relevant reports that

are comparable across the vendors… While this imaginary story may or may
not sound familiar to you, it is precisely the situation the authors encountered
in Summer of 2015.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all e-books vendors and publishers would
provide uniform usage reports which librarians can use to compare usage
of e-books collections from different vendors? Is this possible? What are
COUNTER reports? Why do vendors provide COUNTER reports in addition
to their local usage reports? This book is not about usage per se; it is about
issues surrounding usage reports. Instead of conducting a library usage study,
the authors are attempting an investigation into the current usage reporting
standards and reports offered by a sample of vendors.


Preface

STANDARDIZATION OF USAGE REPORTS
Academic librarians face challenges with interpreting usage statistics provided
by vendors. Despite the various initiatives from international library and
information communities “to bring reliability, consistency, and uniformity to
the usage reports” for more than a decade (Gul & Shah, 2014; Pesch, 2007,
2011; Shepherd, 2004, 2006), many issues regarding usage reports raised
by the library community remain unresolved. Incompatibility among usage
reports is still a major obstacle librarians struggle to overcome (JUSP ebook
discussion forum report, 2016).
Project COUNTER, the latest effort in the standardization of usage reports,
achieved its first significant milestone with the inception of the COUNTER
Code of Practice. The success of COUNTER standards is exhibited by their
wide application in the library and publishing community and the growing
number of electronic content providers who embrace the Code of Practice.
Since 2002, the start of Project COUNTER, there have been four releases

of the COUNTER Code of Practice. COUNTER published its first release
of the Code of Practice in January 2003, thus setting the first international
standards for reporting usage of electronic resources. The second release was
published in 2006, adding information requested by librarians since Release
1. Release 2 specifically addressed issues concerning terminology, layout and
format of reports, and data processing (Pesch, 2007). COUNTER Release
3 (for Journals and Databases) took effect in 2009. It incorporated SUSHI
(the ANSI/NISO Z39.93 Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative).
The SUSHI Protocol made it possible to automate the process of retrieving
COUNTER-compliant usage data. However, it is not until the current release
of the COUNTER Code of Practice (Release 4), when e-books vendors
began to implement the COUNTER standards. Release 4 was published in
December 2013 and its implementation started in January 2014. One of the
most significant developments with COUNTER Release 4 is that it integrated
the book reports as part of the latest COUNTER Code of Practice.
How successful is the implementation of COUNTER standards for counting
e-books usage? Although there has been abundant literature on standardization
of usage statistics and more specifically on COUNTER, most of the existing
COUNTER studies have focused on journals and database usage reports.
A review of current research publications shows very little on COUNTER
reports concerning electronic books. Therefore, the authors felt compelled
to conduct a case study on the vendor implementation of COUNTER book
reports and issues specifically related to e-books usage reports.
vii


Preface

PURPOSE, SCOPE, ORGANIZATION
The present book is primarily about e-books usage reports. More specifically,

it describes the authors’ experience with, questions about, and exploration
of COUNTER book reports and its implementation by vendors. The authors
will examine how consistent and compatible are the usage reports librarians
receive from various e-book vendors by analyzing three vendor cases. The
case study will focus on what types of usage data are delivered by the e-books
providers, and how the data are presented. The book will investigate what
issues and challenges librarians face in interpreting vendor provided usage
data, with the primary focus on data provided by COUNTER standard reports.
Although SUSHI has become an integral part of COUNTER Code of
Practice, this book intends to only discuss the content standards of COUNTER
reports. The technical aspects concerning data processing are less of a focus
in this book. Also, the case study and discussions are based on COUNTER
standards and usage data under Release 4. The authors anticipate the advent
of the COUNTER Code Practice Release 5 in the near future, which will
bring about new changes and improvement of the COUNTER standards.
The authors hope that COUNTER Release 5 will address at least some of
the issues raised in the current study.
The other factors to consider are the setting of the study: it involves a
medium-sized academic institution. The scope of the research is limited to
the size of the library e-books collection, and the number of vendors under
investigation is limited to the circumstances of this institution. Therefore,
some of issues raised in this book may be more typical for small to medium
sized libraries.
The main purpose of this book is to help librarians understand the common
issues surrounding the usage reports produced by e-book vendors. The authors
seek to achieve the following objectives:
1. Understand and evaluate COUNTER standards on the reporting of
e-book usage;
2. Examine and identify issues with vendor practices in collecting and
delivering usage reports, including COUNTER and non-COUNTER

reports;
3. Explore solutions to overcome issues and interpret vendor usage data
in a more meaningful way.

viii


Preface

The book is divided into seven chapters, exploring five main topics:
1. What is COUNTER Code of Practice?
2. How successful is the implementation of COUNTER book reports in
the present case study?
3. How do COUNTER Book Reports 1-5 compare with vendors’ “local”
standard usage reports?
4. Is it possible to consolidate COUNTER and non-COUNTER data?
5. What are some practical solutions to overcome issues and challenges in
interpreting usage data?
The core part of the book is a case study, which examines and/or verifies
whether the data presented in vendor COUNTER reports followed the
COUNTER Code of Practice; whether the data are credible, consistent, and
compatible, or to what degree; and what role vendors’ non-COUNTER reports
play in providing usage data.
Chapters 1 and 2 are about the COUNTER Code of Practice and COUNTER
book reports. Chapter 1 gives a brief account on Project COUNTER, its
purpose, underlying principles and core standards, and more importantly,
who will benefit from the COUNTER standards.
Chapter 2 describes each COUNTER standard report for e-book usage
data, pointing to potential issues as they have been implemented by e-books
vendors. For example, the fact that COUNTER book reports allow vendors to

choose which reports to implement and the flexibility to define content type
for certain data categories could lead to discrepancies and inconsistencies
among vendors in providing COUNTER reports.
Chapters 3 and 4 explore COUNTER Book Reports 1-5 and Platform
Report 1 and their implementation by major vendors. Chapter 3 introduces
a case study, which involves a medium-sized academic library that has been
acquiring e-books primarily through large subscription packages from three
major vendors. It describes the setting, data collection, and methodology of
the study. The chapter describes the current implementation of COUNTER
book reports by three vendors. It identifies what COUNTER and nonCOUNTER reports each vendor provides, examines the COUNTER usage
reports against the COUNTER Code of Practice, and evaluates the degree
of their compliance.

ix


Preface

Chapter 4 examines COUNTER data in detail. The chapter follows
COUNTER guidelines and vendor documentation in the attempt to interpret
COUNTER book reports from each vendor and examine their creditability,
consistency, and comparability. It explores the implications of the fact that
vendors do not provide same COUNTER book reports and/or implement the
COUNTER standards differently. For example, what are the consequences
when COUNTER provides vendors with choices among the standard book
reports, while the “alternatives” are not quite the same? The chapter identifies
issues in interpreting vendor-provided COUNTER reports with examples
and data illustrations.
Chapters 5 and 6 compare vendor COUNTER reports with non-COUNTER
reports. Chapter 5 evaluates vendor non-COUNTER reports against the

same principles; it examines in detail what unique data these “local” reports
provide, as well as identifies potential issues in interpreting these reports.
Primary issues and questions to be addressed include the wide variation in
the number and types of non-COUNTER reports vendors provide, what
unique data these reports contribute, and whether non-COUNTER reports
fill gaps with COUNTER reports. The chapter also looks at the challenge of
comparing variant terminology used to describe data categories among the
vendors, and finally whether, despite their differences, the non-COUNTER
data are compatible with COUNTER data.
Chapter 6 reviews vendor COUNTER and non-COUNTER data in a larger
context. It explores the possibility and feasibility to consolidate useful data
from vendor COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports and discusses how
to overcome the disparities and fill the gaps among the usage data from
different vendors.
Chapter 7 summarizes findings on COUNTER book reports and vendor
practices with COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports, discusses the root
of issues, and seeks possible solutions. It concludes with recommendations
for best practices in dealing with vendor usage reports.

TARGET AUDIENCE
The target audience for this book will be library professionals, library science
students, publishers, vendors, and the COUNTER standards community.

x


Preface

Library professionals will benefit from the detailed examination of available
e-book vendor reports. The continuing growth of electronic resources available

to the library community increases the demand on collection development
librarians to assess these resources. Due to budget constraints librarians
increasingly rely on vendor-provided usage data to support or justify their
collection development decisions. Usage data help them assess the value
of their collections and make informed decisions on renewals. In addition,
usage reports help them understand users’ needs and trends. However,
vendor usage reports do not always provide clear, consistent, and easy to
understand data. Although COUNTER Release 4 offers specific standards
for reporting e-books usage, different content providers may interpret and
implement these standards differently, especially when COUNTER allows
them certain flexibility in the implementation. Therefore, it will be helpful
for librarians to learn about COUNTER principles, being able to discern
what data are required by COUNTER, and recognize issues and challenges
with interpreting usage data.
Library science students will be introduced to inherent challenges of
managing usage statistics that they may encounter in their future careers. It
is important for them to learn the process of electronic resource management,
from dissemination and acquisitions to assessment, and the standards and
tools involved in the process. They should learn what specific issues and
challenges the library and information communities are facing in assessing
e-books usage.
For vendors and developers of the COUNTER standards, the discussions,
findings, and recommendations made in this book may encourage further
standardization and improvement of usage statistics. COUNTER standards
for reporting of e-books usage are relatively new. It has been only three
years since the implementation of COUNTER Book Report 1-5 Release 4.
Most e-book vendors and publishers have been delivering usage reports to
their customers before COUNTER reports emerged. As result, they offer
COUNTER reports in addition to their “local” reports. It is important for them
to hear feedback from their customers. It is important for them know what

specific issues and challenges their customers have with the usage data they
deliver, because as content and service providers they are to make sure that
their customers receive creditable, consistent, and comparable usage data.

xi


Preface

REFERENCES
JUSP ebook discussion forum report. (2016). Retrieved from http://jusp.
mimas.ac.uk/news/JUSP-ebook-discussion-forum-report-20160714.pdf
Pesch, O. (2007). Usage statistics: About COUNTER and SUSHI. Information
Services & Use, 27(4), 207–213.
Pesch, O. (2011). Perfecting COUNTER and SUSHI to achieve reliable
usage analysis. The Serials Librarian, 61(3-4), 353–365. doi:10.1080/0361
526X.2011.617294
Shepherd, P. T. (2004). COUNTER: Towards reliable vendor usage statistics.
VINE: The Journal of Information & Knowledge Management Systems, 34(4),
184-189. doi:10.1108103055720410570975

xii


1

Chapter 1

What Is COUNTER and
Why Is It Important?

ABSTRACT
Electronic usage data serves an important purpose for librarians who need
to assess user activities with electronic collections. Comparing usage reports
by different vendors requires sorting out the various types of reports that are
available and assessing how and if they can effectively be compared. This
book attempts to investigate what makes vendor usage reports compatible
or incompatible, and to what degree. It includes a case study where the
authors analyze and interpret their institution’s data in order to provide
others with possible strategies for productively engaging with e-book usage
reports. Chapter 1 gives a brief account on Project COUNTER (Counting
Networked Electronic Resources). COUNTER supports the process of
collection assessment by providing standards for vendors and publishers to
follow in delivering usage data to libraries. The COUNTER Code of Practice
aims for usage data to be credible, consistent, and comparable, three core
principles. This chapter describes the purpose of COUNTER, its underlying
principles and core standards, and more importantly, who will benefit from
the COUNTER standards.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-3238-5.ch001
Copyright © 2018, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.


What Is COUNTER and Why Is It Important?

INTRODUCTION
The idea for this book emerged from a research project which required the
authors to retrieve and analyze e-book usage reports. Using reports generated
from both ebrary and EBSCO, the authors attempted to sort out the data and
make comparisons between the vendors. In struggling to find commonalities,

it became evident that comparing usage reports of ebrary to EBSCO was like
comparing “apples” with “oranges,” as the two could not be directly linked.
Furthermore, each vendor provided various types of reports, which created
an abundance of data for the authors to consider.
The authors found that comparing usage reports by different vendors
would require sorting out the various types of reports that were available
and assessing how and if they could effectively be compared. Prompted by
that experience, the authors felt compelled to investigate what makes vendor
usage reports compatible or incompatible, and to what degree. Additionally,
they aimed to analyze and interpret their institution’s data to provide others
with possible strategies for productively engaging with e-book usage reports.

MAIN FOCUS
Usage reports are important assessment tools for librarians when making
collection development and cancellation decisions. Understanding and using
report data effectively may be facilitated by gaining additional insight into the
types of reports that are offered by various vendors. The purpose of this book
is 1) for librarians, to make sense of usage reports provided by e-book vendors
to determine what data are available and how the data can be interpreted, 2)
for library science students, to serve as an introduction to the benefits and
challenges of vendor-produced usage reports, 3) for vendors, to help them
understand librarians’ perspectives and provide feedback on using vendor
reports, and 4) for the standards community, to offer observations and share
findings resulting from this case study.
In writing this book the authors aim to introduce readers to the types of
usage reports available, including COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports;
recognize unique data offered by each type of reports; examine inherent
challenges with interpreting usage data; and discuss potential solutions for
the problem of comparing “apples” with “oranges” in usage reports. The
primary focus will be given to COUNTER reports. The goal of this book

2


What Is COUNTER and Why Is It Important?

is to help librarians better understand how COUNTER works and interpret
usage data from vendor-provided reports.
By analyzing and comparing usage reports in a case study, the authors
will assess vendor COUNTER reports against credibility, consistency, and
compatibility, the three COUNTER principles.
This book will:
•

•
•
•
•

Examine and/or verify:
◦◦ Whether the data presented in vendor COUNTER reports followed
the COUNTER standards;
◦◦ Whether the data are credible, consistent, and compatible, and to
what degree;
Evaluate vendor non-COUNTER reports against the same principles;
Identify potential issues and challenges in interpreting data;
Explore the root of issues and seek possible resolutions;
Attempt to consolidate vendor COUNTER and non-COUNTER
reports, finding strengths of both while seeking solutions to overcome
disparities, inconsistencies, and incompatibility among reports from
different vendors.

Readers will:

•
•
•
•

Learn about the COUNTER standards;
Understand how data are delivered or presented in COUNTER and
non-COUNTER reports by publishers and vendors;
Discover unique data offered by both types of vendor reports;
Recognize and overcome challenges with interpreting usage data.

COUNTER OVERVIEW
COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources) is an
international initiative to provide standards for measuring usage of electronic
resources. COUNTER operates as a non-profit organization and includes
members from the library, publisher, and vendor communities. COUNTER
promotes a spirit of collaboration in maintaining The COUNTER Code of
Practice, the principal document of the COUNTER standards.

3


What Is COUNTER and Why Is It Important?

Members participate in the development of COUNTER standards. This
collaborative effort aims to bring consistency to usage reporting by publishers
and vendors. Consistent reporting makes data more compatible, and ultimately
more useful to librarians. With the implementation of COUNTER reports,

data are intended to be organized for clarity and uniformity. More importantly,
data should be credible, consistent, and comparable.
Besides the Code of Practice, the COUNTER organization maintains the
“Registries of Compliance” – a list of the publishers and vendors who have
become COUNTER compliant. COUNTER provides vendors and publishers
with guidance on implementation of COUNTER standards. It also ensures
that publishers and vendors undergo annual independent audits.

How Did COUNTER Emerge? A Quick History
Prior to the implementation of COUNTER standards, librarians had only
individual vendors’ custom usage reports – i.e. non-COUNTER reports.
One major issue with these locally produced reports is their incompatibility
with one another. Pesch (2007) describes the challenges librarians were
facing in managing usage statistics for a growing list of electronic resources.
For example, e-vendors either did not provide reports or provided reports
with inconsistent data. Gul and Shah (2014) further summarize the issues
with vendor-produced reports found in previous studies: “… due to varied
definitions of data elements, varied implementation procedures and absence
of a monitoring agency; they were mostly incompatible and could not be
consolidated” (p. 193).
In the meantime, various national and international organizations of the
library and information community have taken the initiative to standardize
usage reports. One of the earliest collaborated efforts was the development
of the guidelines for usage reporting by International Coalition of Library
Consortia (ICOLC) in the late 1990s. The guidelines “clarified expectations
for terminology to use and what statistics to provide.” Despite the ICOLC
guidelines, inconsistencies in counting, format, and delivery, as well as
timeliness of reports, remained problematic issues with vendor-provided
usage reports (Gul & Shah, 2014; Pesch, 2007).
Project COUNTER was started in 2002 by a group of librarians, publishers,

and vendors who collaborated to create the first Code of Practice. COUNTER
Release 1, made available in 2003, became the standards for publishers and
vendors of electronic resources to provide usage statistics to their customers.
4


What Is COUNTER and Why Is It Important?

The objective of COUNTER is “[t]o develop a single, international, extendible
Code of Practice that allows the usage of online information to be measured in
a credible, consistent and compatible way using vendor-generated data” (The
COUNTER Code of Practice – Release 1, 2003, Slide 4). Subsequent releases
have incorporated changes and suggestions for improvement recommended
by users. The current version of the Code of Practice, Release 4 was made
available in March 2012 and fully implemented by January 2014. Project
COUNTER anticipates that Release 5 will be made available in 2017 and
effective in 2019.

What Is The COUNTER Code of Practice?
The COUNTER Code of Practice, Release 4 (2012) is a set of international
standards that facilitate the process of recording, exchanging, and interpreting
online usage data. The document includes the following sections:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

9.

General Information,
Definitions of Terms Used,
SUSHI,
Usage Reports,
Data Processing,
Auditing,
Compliance,
Maintenance and Development of the Code of Practice, and
Appendices.

The “General Information” section describes the COUNTER general
provisions, such as purpose, scope, application, strategy, governance,
definitions, versions, auditing, and COUNTER compliance. The purpose and
functions of the Code of Practice are summarized as following:
The COUNTER Code of Practice provides guidance on data elements to be
measured, definitions of these data elements, output report content and format,
as well as on data processing and auditing. To have their usage statistics
and reports designated COUNTER compliant, vendors must provide usage
statistics that conform to the Code of Practice.
The purpose of the COUNTER Code of Practice is to facilitate the recording,
exchange and interpretation of online usage data by establishing open,
5


What Is COUNTER and Why Is It Important?

international standards and protocols for the provision of vendor-generated
usage statistics that are consistent, credible and compatible. (p. 3)

The section of “Definitions of the terms used” refers to “Appendix A,”
which is a list of terms relevant to the current release. “Appendix A” is
essential to understand the COUNTER terminology.
The section of “SUSHI” (Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting
Initiative) describes the relationship between the COUNTER standards
and SUSHI protocol. While SUSHI automates the retrieval of COUNTER
usage reports, for this to happen COUNTER reports must be provided in the
SUSHI-specified XML schema.
A list of COUNTER usage reports is provided under “Usage Reports.”
This section specifies the content, format, and delivery of COUNTER
reports, with examples. To be COUNTER-compliant a vendor must follow
these specifications.
The “Data Processing” section specifies the requirements for collecting
relevant data, where only intended usage should be counted. These include
various filters to clean up data and provisions to “mitigate the inflationary
effects of federated searches, internet robots and search-engine prefetching on
the reported usage statistics.” The section describes logfile analysis and page
tagging as two examples of various data generating approaches. However,
“COUNTER does not prescribe which approach should be taken” (p. 24).
The next two sections address COUNTER Auditing and Compliance. All
COUNTER compliant vendors “must be independently audited on a regular
basis in order to maintain their COUNTER compliant status.” Also, vendors
must apply for COUNTER-compliant status. The section of “Compliance”
details the procedures on how to achieve this status. Meanwhile COUNTER
maintains a registry of COUNTER-compliant vendors and their available
COUNTER reports.
The Code of Practice is a document of standards in progress. The section on
maintenance and development describes the responsibilities and collaboration
of the COUNTER communities in further improvement of the Code.
In conjunction with the main sections of the Code of Practice are

“Appendices.” Most of them concern the implementation of COUNTER
standards, such as the following:
1. Glossary of terms relevant to COUNTER,
2. Vendor declaration of COUNTER compliance,
3. SUSHI,
6


What Is COUNTER and Why Is It Important?

4.
5.
6.
7.

Guidelines for implementation,
Auditing requirements and tests,
Excel usage reports examples, and
XML overview, with links to the up to date schemas.

The COUNTER Code of Practice is a monumental achievement in the
standardization of vendor-produced usage data. The COUNTER requirements
for generating consistent, credible, and comparable data make the COUNTER
usage reports more useful, meaningful, and relevant to users. Absent
COUNTER standards, vendors and publishers would be free to provide usage
data in whatever format and categories they choose. Instead, COUNTER
requires content providers to follow the established Code of Practice that
has originated from the feedback of stakeholders throughout the process of
developing and improving COUNTER standards. Librarians’ experiences
with usage data have shaped the standards and will continue to do so as

future releases occur.

Who Will COUNTER Benefit?
For librarians who have struggled with managing usage data, Project
COUNTER provides a much needed framework for standardization and
organization of data and usage reports. COUNTER also benefits vendors
and publishers by providing very specific guidelines for types of data and
instructions for how data should be reported. Per Code of Practice, Release
4, COUNTER standards should:
… enable librarians to compare statistics from different vendors, to make
better-informed purchasing decisions, and to plan infrastructure more
effectively. COUNTER also provides vendors/intermediaries with the detailed
specifications they need to generate data in a format useful to customers, to
compare the relative usage of different delivery channels, and to learn more
about online usage patterns. (p. 3)
Gul and Shah (2014) point out the intended benefits of COUNTER in
their study on the COUNTER Codes and vendor practices.
With the aid of COUNTER reports librarians are able to compare usage
statistics from different vendors; derive useful metrics such as cost-peruse; make better-informed purchasing decisions; and plan infrastructure
more effectively. Publishers and intermediaries are able to: provide data
7


What Is COUNTER and Why Is It Important?

to customers in a format they want; compare the relative usage of different
delivery channels; aggregate data for customers using multiple delivery
channels; and learn more about genuine usage patterns.
The impact of COUNTER is significant, as the standardization of usage
data drives vendors to provide consistent and reliable reports and allows

librarians to assess their collections accurately and in a meaningful way.

CONCLUSION
Usage data serves an important purpose for librarians who need to assess
user activities with electronic collections. COUNTER benefits this process by
providing standards for vendors and publishers to follow in delivering usage
data to libraries. COUNTER aims for usage data to be credible, consistent,
and comparable, three core principles in standardizing data. For librarians
who are not familiar with usage reports, the abundance of data available from
vendors can be overwhelming, especially since vendors now may provide
both COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports. Understanding COUNTER
principles and how COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports relate to each
other are important steps in sorting out relevant data.
This book seeks to guide readers through the types of vendor reports
available for e-books usage, to examine potential areas of confusion, and
to provide strategies for interpreting e-books usage data. Beginning with
COUNTER, readers will be introduced to the types of reports available for
e-books usage and how they are implemented. Then, in a three-part case study,
readers will see the results of one academic library’s analysis of COUNTER
and non-COUNTER e-books usage reports from three vendors, including
EBSCO, ebrary, and Safari. Specifically, the case study will examine which
COUNTER and non-COUNTER reports are available from each vendor,
whether usage reports can be compared, and how the different types of reports
can be analyzed. Finally, this book will attempt to consolidate vendor-provided
usage reports and find opportunities for interpreting e-books usage data in a
broader and more meaningful context.

8

What Is COUNTER and Why Is It Important?

REFERENCES
Gul, S., & Shah, T. A. (2014). COUNTER codes and practices of vendors:
What they say and what they do not say. The Serials Librarian, 67(2), 191–210.
doi:10.1080/0361526X.2014.921660
Pesch, O. (2007). Usage statistics: About COUNTER and SUSHI. Information
Services & Use, 27(4), 207–213.
The COUNTER code of practice for e-resources: Release 4. (2012). Retrieved
from />The COUNTER Code of Practice – Release 1 [Power Point]. (2003). Retrieved
from />
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10

Chapter 2

COUNTER:

Standardization of E-Books Statistics

ABSTRACT
Until more recently, COUNTER reports were predominantly used by content
providers and consumers of electronic journals and databases. One of the
most significant developments with COUNTER Release 4 is that it integrated
book reports as part of the latest COUNTER Code of Practice. Release
4 makes it possible for academic libraries to assess e-books usage in a
consistent, credible, and comparable manner. However, in implementing the
COUNTER standards for book usage reporting, the variant practices among

e-book vendors impose challenges for librarians to correctly interpret vendor
COUNTER reports. Therefore, it is crucial for librarians to consult the Code
of Practice and COUNTER implementation guidelines in order to better
understand COUNTER reports by individual vendors. Chapter 2 discusses
each COUNTER standard report for e-book usage data, pointing to potential
issues as they have been implemented by e-books vendors.

INTRODUCTION
The success of COUNTER standards is evident from its wide implementation
by vendors and publishers and the abundant COUNTER literature since
its conception. However, until more recently, COUNTER reports were
predominantly used by content providers and consumers of electronic journals
and databases. The COUNTER reports for e-books were not implemented by
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-3238-5.ch002
Copyright © 2018, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.


COUNTER

most vendors until The COUNTER Code of Practice, Release 4 (2012). For
example, ebrary, one of the major e-books vendors, only started providing
COUNTER reports in late 2013.
One of the most significant developments with Release 4 is that it integrated
the book reports as part of the latest COUNTER Code of Practice. “Release
4 of the Code of Practice replaces both Release 3 of the Code of Practice for
Journals and Databases and Release 1 of the Code of Practice for Books and
Reference Works” (p. 3). For librarians, the availability of these additional
COUNTER reports provides the opportunity for assessment of electronic
book usage in a standardized way.

COUNTER USAGE REPORTS FOR E-BOOKS
Release 4 of the Code of Practice lists 36 usage reports, covering various
types and formats of electronic resources. These COUNTER reports are
categorized either as standard or optional reports. COUNTER requires that
a vendor must provide standard reports in order to be COUNTER compliant.
The COUNTER standard reports pertinent to e-books usage are Book Reports
1-5 and Platform Report 1.
Book Report 1 (BR1) provides the number of successful title requests by
month and title. The report lists individual book titles with associated usage
statistics, as well as identification information, such as Publisher, ISBN,
Book DOI, and Proprietary Identifier. This report informs customers how
many titles were requested, and how many times and in which month(s) they
were requested. By specifying individual titles, it also provides insight into
what titles were accessed by the user. BR1 is to be provided only if a vendor
delivers an entire e-book in a single file.
If a vendor provides an e-book in multiple files, then Book Report 2 (BR2)
should be used instead. BR2 contains the exact same data categories as BR1.
The only difference between the two reports is that BR1 counts at the title level
while BR2 measures usage at the section level. The Code of Practice defines
section as “[t]he first level of subdivision of a book or reference work.” The
BR2 report includes individual titles and number of section requests for each
title, although it does not specify what particular sections were requested.
Book Report 3 (BR3) contains the exact same data categories as BR1
and BR2, except that instead of successful requests, it counts the number

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COUNTER

of accesses denied (also called “turnaways”). The Access Denied Category
column in BR3 lists causes for denial such as “concurrent user license limit
exceeded” or “content item not licensed.” Although BR3 does not present
usage per se, the turnaway statistics help inform librarians of unsatisfied needs
of their constituents or possible gaps in their libraries’ collections. BR3 is to
be used where accesses are denied at the title level.
If turnaways occur at the platform level, the standard COUNTER report
is Book Report 4 (BR4). No individual titles are provided in this report. One
may interpret the actual difference between BR3 and BR4 in a more concrete
way: the former accounts for situations where the end user can retrieve hits
but is denied access to the content of certain titles, while the latter is used
for cases where the user is denied any successful return because access is
turned away at the platform or database level.
Book Report 5 (BR5) provides total searches by month and title. Per Code
of Practice, BR5 is “to be supplied only for those titles where searches and
sessions can be counted at the title level.” BR5 contains individual titles and
search statistics associated with each title. The type of searches is specified
in the “User Activity” column, and should distinguish between regular and
federated searches. This report “highlights different ways in which users may
engage with e-book content on a publisher platform” (Librarians’ questions
answered, 2016).
Besides the book reports, another standard COUNTER usage report required
of e-books vendors is Platform Report 1 (PR1). This report provides total
searches, result clicks, and record views by month and platform. “Platform”
is defined by the Code of Practice as “an interface from an Aggregator, Host,
Publisher or Service that delivers the content to the user and that counts
and provides the COUNTER usage reports.” The difference between PR1
and BR5 is that the former counts searches on the vendor platform and the
latter totals the number of times when a user searches within the contents of
an e-book. In PR1, the User Activity column contains numbers of searches

(including regular and federated searches), result clicks, and record views.
Table 1 below is an overview of the data categories in Book Reports 1-5
and Platform Report 1.
BR1, BR2, BR3, and BR5 provide usage data associated with individual
titles. The four book reports contain the exact same categories of title and
other book identification data (such as Book DOI, Proprietary Identifier,
ISBN, etc.), although each report provides a different type of usage statistics.
BR4 and PR1 are platform usage reports. Therefore, they do not include
individual titles or title information. Instead, the statistics are associated
12