Proprietary ID

The COUNTER release 5 (“C5”) Code of Practice let us add a custom ID to the Title Reports, if we think an identifier would be useful to librarians. We have chosen to add such IDs.


The Proprietary_ID element can have one of three types of values:

  • If Data_Type = "Book" then ProprietaryId = Print ISBN

  • If Data_Type = "Journal" then ProprietaryID = Journal ID

  • If either Print ISBN or Journal ID are missing from our metadata repository, the element will be left blank.


In COUNTER release 4 reports the Proprietary Identifier is one of:

  • If the report is for book usage then Proprietary Identifier = Print ISBN

  • If the report is for journal usage then Proprietary Identifier = Journal ID

  • If either Print ISBN or Journal ID are missing from our metadata repository, the element will be left blank.


So, the same identifiers are used in C4 and C5, but in the C5 Title reports the same report might have both books and journals, and the types of identifiers will therefore be mixed.


Journal ID (sometimes called Material ID, product ID or Title ID) is a SN internal number that we apply to most journals. The Journal ID is included in MARC records and Excel lists from the Metadata Downloader, Title Lists from the Librarian Portal, price lists, and in some other types of files.

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