Tech Support
Date formatting and text strings
The Code of Practice requires publishers to offer tabular versions of their COUNTER reports. Most providers offer two formats: tab separated files (.tsv) and Excel files (.xlsx). We also specify…
Multiple platforms, one report
After the COUNTER Conference, one of our publisher members asked whether they could reduce librarians’ workloads by offering reports for all of their platforms (websites) in a single report. The…
Retiring Release 5
One of the questions that comes to me reasonably frequently is about when Release 5 will be retired. The answer, of course, is “it depends on what you mean by…
How can text and data mining activity be audited?
The COUNTER Code of Practice includes an Access Method called TDM, which is used to report on text and data mining activity, for example through a specific API. The Code…
GDPR and COUNTER reports
A fun puzzle crossed my desk recently, and I thought it would make a good tech support post. This is a question about the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) in…
Low usage?
We’ve had quite a few questions in recent months from libraries and publishers who’ve noted a decrease in usage. The first question we always ask is, of course, whether they’re…
Harvest season
“I’ve set up my system to harvest COUNTER Reports on the 15th of each month but I keep seeing errors. Why can’t I download my reports?” “Why did Release 5.1…
Protecting the COUNTER API
The internet is a dangerous place. Internet traffic is full of automated bots, scripts, and other malicious actors. Therefore it is legitimate to protect any resource that is exposed to…
Aggregated content: Data Types and Parent Data Types
What is aggregated content, anyway? We use the word aggregated a lot in COUNTER! Individual pieces of content (items) are often aggregated into titles, and titles and items are often…