How COUNTER Metrics and CLOCKSS work together to support open access: Highlights from our webinar 

On the 24th of June, Tasha had the pleasure of participating in a webinar featuring Alicia Wise, Executive Director of CLOCKSS. Together they explored how usage metrics and digital preservation services intersect to support a sustainable open access (OA) ecosystem. The session offered a deep dive into the complementary roles of COUNTER and CLOCKSS. It touched on shared goals, common misconceptions, and the future of infrastructure support for OA content. Here are some key takeaways from our conversation.

COUNTER and the importance of transparent metrics

Tasha emphasized that transparency and accountability are core to COUNTER’s mission. Usage data plays a vital role in evaluating the performance and value of OA publications. With standardization at its core, COUNTER ensures that usage statistics are comparable, trustworthy, and auditable. These are critical attributes for stakeholders making funding and publishing decisions. COUNTER’s work allows institutions to distinguish between genuine user engagement and artificial traffic. This offers clarity in a fast-growing OA publishing environment.

CLOCKSS and the role of digital preservation

Alicia highlighted that preservation is often overlooked until it’s too late. CLOCKSS addresses this by ensuring that academic content remains accessible in the long run—even if a publisher ceases operations or removes content from its platform. She explained that digital preservation builds trust with libraries and publishers. In the OA model it plays an especially important role by fulfilling the promise of “open forever.” In a world where digital content is fragile and platforms evolve or disappear, CLOCKSS steps in to safeguard the scholarly record.

A shared mission: complementary roles for OA

While COUNTER focuses on how content is used today, and CLOCKSS ensures content is available tomorrow, both organizations work toward a common goal: strengthening the infrastructure that supports knowledge dissemination. Tasha and Alicia agreed that usage measurement and preservation are two sides of the same coin. COUNTER helps track the value of content, while CLOCKSS ensures that value is never lost. Together, they provide confidence to researchers, libraries, and funders that knowledge is both impactful and enduring.

Looking to the future, both leaders acknowledged the need for closer collaboration across infrastructure services. As the open infrastructure ecosystem grows, integrated approaches to metrics and preservation can reduce fragmentation and build resilience. Tasha and Alicia also identified sustainability and funding as shared challenges. They emphasized the importance of cross-sector support to maintain essential services like COUNTER and CLOCKSS.

The webinar shed light on how metrics and preservation – often seen as technical back-office functions – are, in fact, key to a robust scholarly infrastructure. Through their complementary efforts, COUNTER and CLOCKSS help ensure that content is both measurable in its impact and guaranteed in its longevity.

If you missed the session or want to revisit the insights, you can find the recording on CLOCKSS’ YouTube channel.