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Project Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources (COUNTER) released its first code of practice in 2002. Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) was introduced in 2007 as a way of automating the harvesting of COUNTER reports.Both initiatives have been well adopted yet there is still confusion about how to implement SUSHI. This column offers a primer for library staff wanting to take advantage of the benefits of SUSHI. It starts with a quick review of both COUNTER and SUSHI, then covers options for SUSHI clients, examines SUSHI configuration requirements, demonstrates how to use SUSHI to obtain a COUNTER report and shows an example of working with a COUNTER Journal Reports in Extensible Markup Language (XML) format to create a spreadsheet with a simple cost-per-use and package analysis. By the end the reader should gain enough knowledge to configure a SUSHI client, successfully harvest COUNTER statistics and to perform some basic analysis on that usage.

In 2005, SUSHI became the latest buzzword in the library community. This article (and this kind of SUSHI) refers to usage data, not raw fish. The growth of online collections has resulted in libraries demanding that publishers provide detailed usage data to allow them to better manage their collections and purchases. The Project COUNTER Code of Practice was created in response to this need; however, it did not address the painstaking task of collection and management of the usage data. SUSHI is a new protocol developed to allow for automated retrieval of COUNTER usage reports from publishers and other content providers.

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