Improvements to usage stats (COUNTER robots)

In an effort to improve the accuracy and reliability of your repository's usage statistics, TDL has installed the official list of web crawler robots maintained by Project COUNTER (https://www.projectcounter.org/) in all TDL-hosted DSpace repositories. Beginning on January 1st, 2020, the usage statistics coming from known robots on the list will not be counted in regular repository statistics.

The impacts of adding Project COUNTER's crawler agent list to the repository are hard to predict, though it is likely that repository managers will notice a reduction in usage stats. That said, repository usage statistics are sure to be more accurate and reliable, and more comparable to other online resources that utilize the COUNTER standard.

TDL updates the crawler robots list in your repository on a monthly basis, so that it continues to be aligned with the list maintained by Project COUNTER. 

Many thanks to TDL’s Nick Woodward and Nick Lauland for implementing this fix on our hosted repositories.