COUNTER Code of Practice

The COUNTER Code of Practice is the international standard for measuring and reporting the usage of electronic information resources. Since its founding in 2003, COUNTER has brought the knowledge community together to agree on normalized metrics for content usage, enabling libraries, publishers, consortia, aggregators, and technology providers to produce consistent and comparable usage statistics across platforms.

Background

COUNTER was founded in 2003 to solve a fundamental problem: every publishing platform was reporting usage differently. Librarians could not meaningfully compare usage data across vendors, making evidence-based collection management and licensing decisions impossible. The organization has remained true to its mission for over 20 years, with the Code evolving significantly to address the changing nature of digital content. It is a not-for-profit organization financially sustained by a global community of members.

Purpose and Scope

The COUNTER Code of Practice defines standardized rules for:

• Metrics -- normalized measures of usage (Total_Item_Requests, Unique_Item_Investigations, Unique_Title_Requests, and others)
• Reports -- defined report formats including Platform Reports (PR), Database Reports (DR), Title Reports (TR), and Item Reports (IR)
• Processing rules -- how to count sessions, handle double-clicks, filter robots and crawlers, and apply consistent logic
• Compliance and auditing -- formal processes to ensure vendors deliver accurate, standardized data

The standard covers electronic journals, ebooks, databases, multimedia, and other online resources. Release 5.1 is the current version, and as of February 2026, over 80% of report providers have achieved R5.1 compliance.

Key Reports

Serializations and Technical Formats

COUNTER reports can be delivered in two formats:

• JSON -- the machine-readable format used by the SUSHI protocol (ANSI/NISO Z39.93) for automated harvesting
• TSV -- tab-separated values for manual download and spreadsheet analysis

Governance and Maintenance

COUNTER is a community-led not-for-profit organization governed by a board of directors with representation from libraries, publishers, and technology providers. The organization sustains itself through membership fees from its global community. Governance, Code development, and outreach activities rely significantly on volunteers. An Advisory Committee and working groups address specific topics such as pathways to compliance and AI metrics. The COUNTER Academy provides formal education on the Code of Practice.

Current Developments

The organization is actively engaged in several forward-looking initiatives as of early 2026:

• AI metrics -- Consultation and advisory work on how to measure and report usage from generative and agentic AI systems
• Pathways to Compliance -- Developing new approaches to compliance following community consultation
• Multiple institutional identities -- Standardizing how usage is reported for users with multiple affiliations
• COUNTER API -- Protecting the API infrastructure from automated bot traffic

Notable Implementations

• Major academic publishers (Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, SAGE) are COUNTER-compliant
• Database providers (EBSCO, ProQuest, JSTOR) deliver COUNTER reports
• Library management and electronic resource management systems integrate COUNTER/SUSHI for automated statistics harvesting
• Consortial licensing negotiations frequently rely on COUNTER data
• The COUNTER Registry lists hundreds of compliant platforms worldwide

Related Standards

• SUSHI (ANSI/NISO Z39.93) -- the automated harvesting protocol designed specifically for COUNTER report retrieval
• NISO -- COUNTER works closely with NISO on related standards for the information community

Further Reading

• COUNTER Code of Practice R5.1
• Friendly Guides
• COUNTER Registry
• COUNTER FAQs