Blackwell Books Online Platform becomes COUNTER-Compliant

[Gillingham Emily <Emily.Gillingham@oxon.blackwellpublishing.com>]

NEWS RELEASE

- Blackwell Books Online Platform becomes COUNTER-Compliant -

March 26th 2007 - The platform which hosts Blackwell Reference 
Online and The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology Online has now 
been certified as providing COUNTER-Compliant usage data. 
Blackwell Books Online adheres to Release 1 of the COUNTER Code 
of Practice for Books and Reference Works.  The usage reports, 
which are always up-to-date and can be accessed any time, show 
the number of successful section requests by month and title, 
turnaways by month, and total searches and sessions by month.

Blackwell Publishing is the fourth vendor to become compliant 
with this new Code of Practice, which came into existence in 
March 2006.  "We strongly encourage other publishers and vendors 
of ebooks and reference works to become compliant," said Peter 
Shepherd, Director of Project COUNTER.  "It's important that a 
critical mass of vendors issue compliant statistics so that 
libraries can begin to get a picture of the value of their online 
resources and can make true comparisons across products".

Blackwell Reference Online is the largest academic collection of 
reference material in the humanities and social sciences to be 
published online.  The product holds almost 300 volumes and 
10,000 chapters including Blackwell's award winning Companions 
and Handbooks series and the entire 12-volume Blackwell 
Encyclopedia of Management.  The content is licensed as a 
complete collection, or as six essential subject collections: 
Business and Economics; Philosophy and Religion; Literature and 
Cultural Studies; Language and Linguistics, Sociology and 
Psychology; and History.  Already libraries across the world are 
choosing to license the product and adding it to their online 
resources.

Igor Novakovic, Project Manager for Blackwell Books Online, 
points out that "There is a really sophisticated classification 
system applied to the content which allows users to search for 
answers to their research questions across the reference database 
by subject, person, period, key topic and place."  He added, "As 
well as COUNTER-Compliant usage statistics, library customers can 
download MARC records for the books included, plus all 
bibliographic references are OpenURL compliant and there are DOIs 
at book and chapter level to allow for easy linking within 
library systems."

Blackwell Reference Online and The Blackwell Encyclopedia of 
Sociology Online are built on a platform developed by Semantico. 
Brad Scott, Account Director at Semantico, commented that "Our 
solution for Blackwell not only utilizes our publishing platform 
technologies, but was the first deployment of the new COUNTER 
component part of our SAMS access management system. We are 
delighted that the deployment at Blackwell has received its 
certified compliance from the COUNTER Project."

- About Blackwell Books Online -

Blackwell Books Online comprises Blackwell Reference Online (BRO) 
and the The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (BEOS) which each 
launched at the beginning of 2007.  BRO is available to 
institutions as a one-time purchase for perpetual access to the 
whole collection or individual subject areas.  BEOS is available 
either by annual subscription or as a one-time purchase with an 
annual fee covering hosting and updates.  Both BRO and BEOS are 
available to libraries for a 60-day free trial period.  For more 
information, visit: http://www.blackwellreference.com

- About Project COUNTER -

COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources) 
is a multi-agency initiative whose objective is to provide a set 
of internationally accepted, extendible Codes of Practice that 
will allow the usage of online information products and services 
to be measured more consistently.  COUNTER is actively supported 
by the international community of librarians, vendors and 
intermediaries, and by their professional organizations.  For 
more information, visit http://www.projectCounter.org

- About Semantico -

Semantico is an award-winning company dedicated to delivering 
successful online publishing solutions.  It brings knowledge and 
expertise in online publishing direct to the publisher, working 
in partnership to create solutions which are both successful and 
sustainable.  Specializing in the creation and management of 
platform-based web sites and access management systems, 
Semantico's software products and services equip publishers with 
complete editorial and commercial control.  The simplicity with 
which new content can be added, or existing online material 
repackaged to extend audience reach, maximises the potential 
return on investment. For more information, visit 
http://www.semantico.com

Contact:

Emily Gillingham
emily.gillingham@oxon.blackwellpublishing.com
Tel: +44 (0)1865 476425

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