COUNTER newsletter, September 2026

September brings with it conference season. I’ve already attended the ALPSP and OASPA meetings this month, with Frankfurt STM and Book Fair, the Danish Research Library Association, Charleston and ANKOS conferences still to come between this newsletter and the next one. If you spot me at an event, please come and say hello!

It’s also the time of year when we start the renewal process. If you’re a member, you should have already received the initial notification of 2027 prices. If not, please check your spam filter. The renewal invoices themselves should go out in the week of 12 October*

In the meantime, there’s been a lot going on behind the scenes with OA consultations, AI best practice, and education updates. Read it all below, and check out the very lovely gift that someone sent me. If it was you, please do fess up so that I can thank you properly!

*Frankfurt almost always leaves me with a nasty cold, in which case invoicing might slip to the following week.

Last call for feedback on our OA consultation

Don’t forget to send us your feedback about the COUNTER best practice on open access. The form’s open until this Friday, 2 October.

AI metrics

In case you missed it, there’s an update on our best practice for generative and agentic AI over on the blog. Our amazing working group is making huge progress, but my travel schedule means we’re likely to publish a little later than planned – after Frankfurt Book Fair, rather than before.

Education updates

As well as the usual tech support posts, there’s a raft of new educational materials coming soon.

I published new video introductions to most of the friendly guides in August.

There’s going to be an updated Friendly Guide to COUNTER for OA when our open access best practice is published. I also have plans to write guides to syndicated usage and AI metrics, though not until the travel schedule eases off.

Before then, you’ll see replacements for the old librarian manuals. They’ll cover databases, serials (including journals, conference proceedings, newspapers and magazines), and books (including reference works).

I’m also working with the Code Team to review technical introductions to the Validator and the COUNTER API and JSON Schema.

All these new guides mean we need to make some navigation changes to the website. Keep an eye out for them and, as always, let me know what you think.

• How to spot a global report – including a sample Global Item Report.
• A confession about my standard views meltdown on the ERIL listserv. I don’t know which lovely person sent me the mug, but I use it every day for my tea!
• Usage-based pricing (hint: transparency matters).
• Why Excel mangles date formatting and text strings.