Why bother with COUNTER membership?

In our increasingly complex landscape, being able to rely on consistent, comparable usage metrics is more critical than ever. Whether you are evaluating subscription investments, demonstrating the reach of published research, or (soon!) reviewing AI tools, you need normalised usage data to compare across platforms and over time.

Behind the COUNTER Code of Practice is a global community of libraries, consortia, publishers, and technology providers working together. Most of our resources, including the Code, are openly available to the world. Our members are what help us to do that, not to mention keeping us independent, relevant, and sustainable.

For libraries and consortia

We know you are navigating budget pressures, increasing demand for new tools and services, and ever-evolving collection strategies. COUNTER membership might seem like a nice-to-have, but many of our members will tell you it’s an essential investment in professional empowerment and community support.

• Keep your entire team informed with free member-only webinars and the annual COUNTER Conference.
• Upskill your team with the COUNTER Academy, our 16-week online course that builds practical confidence in handling usage reports, harvesting workflows, combining COUNTER with other data, and more. So far, our generous sponsors have allowed us to offer a free Academy spot to each library that has applied.
• Ensuring your priorities directly shape future updates to the Code of Practice and to our best practices by sending a representative to the Advisory Committee.
• Consortia members can also extend conference registration to up to ten staff across affiliated institutions, as well as asking Tasha for a bespoke webinar.

For publishers and technology providers

Just as libraries face budget pressures, publishers are tackling rapid technological shifts that are redefining content discovery. At the same time, their teams are managing a massive surge in research volume (increasingly inflated by low-quality, AI-generated content) which is straining editorial capacity and infrastructure. We’re here to help.

• Use your COUNTER compliance as a key signal of quality, transparency, and customer service. Only active members can be listed in the COUNTER Registry, verifying your platform’s compliance status to librarians worldwide.
• Adding notifications to the listserv (and the Registry!) is also a great way to let librarians know what’s going on in your tech stack. Keeping them informed rather than waiting for complaints is a good way to reduce customer service tickets.
• We can offer direct support and pre-audit guidance, simplifying your compliance journey and reducing operational friction.
• You can also shape future updates to the Code of Practice and to our best practices by sending a representative to the Advisory Committee. It’s only by balancing the needs of the whole community that we can keep maintain a balanced, vendor-neutral standard, reinforcing mutual trust.

Help us sustain your shared asset

We are a non-profit, community-driven organization. Membership fees are carefully structured to keep pricing accessible while ensuring we can continue delivering free tools, open standards, and ongoing support for the entire community.

When your institution renews its COUNTER membership, you are not just paying for a service – you are actively sustaining the open standard that makes fair, transparent usage reporting possible for everyone.