diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index d0f6cd0e..677ecafc 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ More models, more fixes
 * `cs3`, `darknet`, and `vit_*relpos` weights above all trained on TPU thanks to TRC program! Rest trained on overheating GPUs.
 * Hugging Face Hub support fixes verified, demo notebook TBA
 * Pretrained weights / configs can be loaded externally (ie from local disk) w/ support for head adaptation.
-* Add support to change image extensions scanned by `timm` datasets/parsers. See (https://github.com/rwightman/pytorch-image-models/pull/1274#issuecomment-1178303103)
+* Add support to change image extensions scanned by `timm` datasets/readers. See (https://github.com/rwightman/pytorch-image-models/pull/1274#issuecomment-1178303103)
 * Default ConvNeXt LayerNorm impl to use `F.layer_norm(x.permute(0, 2, 3, 1), ...).permute(0, 3, 1, 2)` via `LayerNorm2d` in all cases. 
   * a bit slower than previous custom impl on some hardware (ie Ampere w/ CL), but overall fewer regressions across wider HW / PyTorch version ranges. 
   * previous impl exists as `LayerNormExp2d` in `models/layers/norm.py`
diff --git a/timm/data/__init__.py b/timm/data/__init__.py
index 0eb10a66..7cc7b0b0 100644
--- a/timm/data/__init__.py
+++ b/timm/data/__init__.py
@@ -6,8 +6,8 @@ from .dataset import ImageDataset, IterableImageDataset, AugMixDataset
 from .dataset_factory import create_dataset
 from .loader import create_loader
 from .mixup import Mixup, FastCollateMixup
-from .parsers import create_parser,\
-    get_img_extensions, is_img_extension, set_img_extensions, add_img_extensions, del_img_extensions
+from .readers import create_reader
+from .readers import get_img_extensions, is_img_extension, set_img_extensions, add_img_extensions, del_img_extensions
 from .real_labels import RealLabelsImagenet
 from .transforms import *
 from .transforms_factory import create_transform
diff --git a/timm/data/dataset.py b/timm/data/dataset.py
index 93b429e0..e7f67925 100644
--- a/timm/data/dataset.py
+++ b/timm/data/dataset.py
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ import torch
 import torch.utils.data as data
 from PIL import Image
 
-from .parsers import create_parser
+from .readers import create_reader
 
 _logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ class ImageDataset(data.Dataset):
     def __init__(
             self,
             root,
-            parser=None,
+            reader=None,
             split='train',
             class_map=None,
             load_bytes=False,
@@ -31,14 +31,14 @@ class ImageDataset(data.Dataset):
             transform=None,
             target_transform=None,
     ):
-        if parser is None or isinstance(parser, str):
-            parser = create_parser(
-                parser or '',
+        if reader is None or isinstance(reader, str):
+            reader = create_reader(
+                reader or '',
                 root=root,
                 split=split,
                 class_map=class_map
             )
-        self.parser = parser
+        self.reader = reader
         self.load_bytes = load_bytes
         self.img_mode = img_mode
         self.transform = transform
@@ -46,15 +46,15 @@ class ImageDataset(data.Dataset):
         self._consecutive_errors = 0
 
     def __getitem__(self, index):
-        img, target = self.parser[index]
+        img, target = self.reader[index]
 
         try:
             img = img.read() if self.load_bytes else Image.open(img)
         except Exception as e:
-            _logger.warning(f'Skipped sample (index {index}, file {self.parser.filename(index)}). {str(e)}')
+            _logger.warning(f'Skipped sample (index {index}, file {self.reader.filename(index)}). {str(e)}')
             self._consecutive_errors += 1
             if self._consecutive_errors < _ERROR_RETRY:
-                return self.__getitem__((index + 1) % len(self.parser))
+                return self.__getitem__((index + 1) % len(self.reader))
             else:
                 raise e
         self._consecutive_errors = 0
@@ -72,13 +72,13 @@ class ImageDataset(data.Dataset):
         return img, target
 
     def __len__(self):
-        return len(self.parser)
+        return len(self.reader)
 
     def filename(self, index, basename=False, absolute=False):
-        return self.parser.filename(index, basename, absolute)
+        return self.reader.filename(index, basename, absolute)
 
     def filenames(self, basename=False, absolute=False):
-        return self.parser.filenames(basename, absolute)
+        return self.reader.filenames(basename, absolute)
 
 
 class IterableImageDataset(data.IterableDataset):
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ class IterableImageDataset(data.IterableDataset):
     def __init__(
             self,
             root,
-            parser=None,
+            reader=None,
             split='train',
             is_training=False,
             batch_size=None,
@@ -96,10 +96,10 @@ class IterableImageDataset(data.IterableDataset):
             transform=None,
             target_transform=None,
     ):
-        assert parser is not None
-        if isinstance(parser, str):
-            self.parser = create_parser(
-                parser,
+        assert reader is not None
+        if isinstance(reader, str):
+            self.reader = create_reader(
+                reader,
                 root=root,
                 split=split,
                 is_training=is_training,
@@ -109,13 +109,13 @@ class IterableImageDataset(data.IterableDataset):
                 download=download,
             )
         else:
-            self.parser = parser
+            self.reader = reader
         self.transform = transform
         self.target_transform = target_transform
         self._consecutive_errors = 0
 
     def __iter__(self):
-        for img, target in self.parser:
+        for img, target in self.reader:
             if self.transform is not None:
                 img = self.transform(img)
             if self.target_transform is not None:
@@ -123,29 +123,29 @@ class IterableImageDataset(data.IterableDataset):
             yield img, target
 
     def __len__(self):
-        if hasattr(self.parser, '__len__'):
-            return len(self.parser)
+        if hasattr(self.reader, '__len__'):
+            return len(self.reader)
         else:
             return 0
 
     def set_epoch(self, count):
         # TFDS and WDS need external epoch count for deterministic cross process shuffle
-        if hasattr(self.parser, 'set_epoch'):
-            self.parser.set_epoch(count)
+        if hasattr(self.reader, 'set_epoch'):
+            self.reader.set_epoch(count)
 
     def set_loader_cfg(
             self,
             num_workers: Optional[int] = None,
     ):
         # TFDS and WDS readers need # workers for correct # samples estimate before loader processes created
-        if hasattr(self.parser, 'set_loader_cfg'):
-            self.parser.set_loader_cfg(num_workers=num_workers)
+        if hasattr(self.reader, 'set_loader_cfg'):
+            self.reader.set_loader_cfg(num_workers=num_workers)
 
     def filename(self, index, basename=False, absolute=False):
         assert False, 'Filename lookup by index not supported, use filenames().'
 
     def filenames(self, basename=False, absolute=False):
-        return self.parser.filenames(basename, absolute)
+        return self.reader.filenames(basename, absolute)
 
 
 class AugMixDataset(torch.utils.data.Dataset):
diff --git a/timm/data/dataset_factory.py b/timm/data/dataset_factory.py
index 2c2bb0bf..3777a5aa 100644
--- a/timm/data/dataset_factory.py
+++ b/timm/data/dataset_factory.py
@@ -137,11 +137,11 @@ def create_dataset(
     elif name.startswith('hfds/'):
         # NOTE right now, HF datasets default arrow format is a random-access Dataset,
         # There will be a IterableDataset variant too, TBD
-        ds = ImageDataset(root, parser=name, split=split, **kwargs)
+        ds = ImageDataset(root, reader=name, split=split, **kwargs)
     elif name.startswith('tfds/'):
         ds = IterableImageDataset(
             root,
-            parser=name,
+            reader=name,
             split=split,
             is_training=is_training,
             download=download,
@@ -153,7 +153,7 @@ def create_dataset(
     elif name.startswith('wds/'):
         ds = IterableImageDataset(
             root,
-            parser=name,
+            reader=name,
             split=split,
             is_training=is_training,
             batch_size=batch_size,
@@ -166,5 +166,5 @@ def create_dataset(
         if search_split and os.path.isdir(root):
             # look for split specific sub-folder in root
             root = _search_split(root, split)
-        ds = ImageDataset(root, parser=name, class_map=class_map, load_bytes=load_bytes, **kwargs)
+        ds = ImageDataset(root, reader=name, class_map=class_map, load_bytes=load_bytes, **kwargs)
     return ds
diff --git a/timm/data/parsers/__init__.py b/timm/data/parsers/__init__.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 4e820d5e..00000000
--- a/timm/data/parsers/__init__.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,2 +0,0 @@
-from .parser_factory import create_parser
-from .img_extensions import *
diff --git a/timm/data/parsers/parser_factory.py b/timm/data/parsers/parser_factory.py
deleted file mode 100644
index f5133433..00000000
--- a/timm/data/parsers/parser_factory.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,35 +0,0 @@
-import os
-
-from .parser_image_folder import ParserImageFolder
-from .parser_image_in_tar import ParserImageInTar
-
-
-def create_parser(name, root, split='train', **kwargs):
-    name = name.lower()
-    name = name.split('/', 2)
-    prefix = ''
-    if len(name) > 1:
-        prefix = name[0]
-    name = name[-1]
-
-    # FIXME improve the selection right now just tfds prefix or fallback path, will need options to
-    # explicitly select other options shortly
-    if prefix == 'hfds':
-        from .parser_hfds import ParserHfds  # defer tensorflow import
-        parser = ParserHfds(root, name, split=split, **kwargs)
-    elif prefix == 'tfds':
-        from .parser_tfds import ParserTfds  # defer tensorflow import
-        parser = ParserTfds(root, name, split=split, **kwargs)
-    elif prefix == 'wds':
-        from .parser_wds import ParserWds
-        kwargs.pop('download', False)
-        parser = ParserWds(root, name, split=split, **kwargs)
-    else:
-        assert os.path.exists(root)
-        # default fallback path (backwards compat), use image tar if root is a .tar file, otherwise image folder
-        # FIXME support split here, in parser?
-        if os.path.isfile(root) and os.path.splitext(root)[1] == '.tar':
-            parser = ParserImageInTar(root, **kwargs)
-        else:
-            parser = ParserImageFolder(root, **kwargs)
-    return parser
diff --git a/timm/data/readers/__init__.py b/timm/data/readers/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..63e4e649
--- /dev/null
+++ b/timm/data/readers/__init__.py
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+from .reader_factory import create_reader
+from .img_extensions import *
diff --git a/timm/data/parsers/class_map.py b/timm/data/readers/class_map.py
similarity index 100%
rename from timm/data/parsers/class_map.py
rename to timm/data/readers/class_map.py
diff --git a/timm/data/parsers/img_extensions.py b/timm/data/readers/img_extensions.py
similarity index 100%
rename from timm/data/parsers/img_extensions.py
rename to timm/data/readers/img_extensions.py
diff --git a/timm/data/parsers/parser.py b/timm/data/readers/reader.py
similarity index 97%
rename from timm/data/parsers/parser.py
rename to timm/data/readers/reader.py
index 76ab6d18..fe55d313 100644
--- a/timm/data/parsers/parser.py
+++ b/timm/data/readers/reader.py
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 from abc import abstractmethod
 
 
-class Parser:
+class Reader:
     def __init__(self):
         pass
 
diff --git a/timm/data/readers/reader_factory.py b/timm/data/readers/reader_factory.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..58ff56cd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/timm/data/readers/reader_factory.py
@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+import os
+
+from .reader_image_folder import ReaderImageFolder
+from .reader_image_in_tar import ReaderImageInTar
+
+
+def create_reader(name, root, split='train', **kwargs):
+    name = name.lower()
+    name = name.split('/', 2)
+    prefix = ''
+    if len(name) > 1:
+        prefix = name[0]
+    name = name[-1]
+
+    # FIXME improve the selection right now just tfds prefix or fallback path, will need options to
+    # explicitly select other options shortly
+    if prefix == 'hfds':
+        from .reader_hfds import ReaderHfds  # defer tensorflow import
+        reader = ReaderHfds(root, name, split=split, **kwargs)
+    elif prefix == 'tfds':
+        from .reader_tfds import ReaderTfds  # defer tensorflow import
+        reader = ReaderTfds(root, name, split=split, **kwargs)
+    elif prefix == 'wds':
+        from .reader_wds import ReaderWds
+        kwargs.pop('download', False)
+        reader = ReaderWds(root, name, split=split, **kwargs)
+    else:
+        assert os.path.exists(root)
+        # default fallback path (backwards compat), use image tar if root is a .tar file, otherwise image folder
+        # FIXME support split here or in reader?
+        if os.path.isfile(root) and os.path.splitext(root)[1] == '.tar':
+            reader = ReaderImageInTar(root, **kwargs)
+        else:
+            reader = ReaderImageFolder(root, **kwargs)
+    return reader
diff --git a/timm/data/parsers/parser_hfds.py b/timm/data/readers/reader_hfds.py
similarity index 94%
rename from timm/data/parsers/parser_hfds.py
rename to timm/data/readers/reader_hfds.py
index a558aaf3..901cf4bc 100644
--- a/timm/data/parsers/parser_hfds.py
+++ b/timm/data/readers/reader_hfds.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-""" Dataset parser interface that wraps Hugging Face datasets
+""" Dataset reader that wraps Hugging Face datasets
+
 Hacked together by / Copyright 2022 Ross Wightman
 """
 import io
@@ -12,7 +13,7 @@ try:
 except ImportError as e:
     print("Please install Hugging Face datasets package `pip install datasets`.")
     exit(1)
-from .parser import Parser
+from .reader import Reader
 
 
 def get_class_labels(info):
@@ -23,7 +24,7 @@ def get_class_labels(info):
     return class_to_idx
 
 
-class ParserHfds(Parser):
+class ReaderHfds(Reader):
 
     def __init__(
             self,
diff --git a/timm/data/parsers/parser_image_folder.py b/timm/data/readers/reader_image_folder.py
similarity index 94%
rename from timm/data/parsers/parser_image_folder.py
rename to timm/data/readers/reader_image_folder.py
index 3d22a17b..05823372 100644
--- a/timm/data/parsers/parser_image_folder.py
+++ b/timm/data/readers/reader_image_folder.py
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-""" A dataset parser that reads images from folders
+""" A dataset reader that extracts images from folders
 
-Folders are scannerd recursively to find image files. Labels are based
+Folders are scanned recursively to find image files. Labels are based
 on the folder hierarchy, just leaf folders by default.
 
 Hacked together by / Copyright 2020 Ross Wightman
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ from timm.utils.misc import natural_key
 
 from .class_map import load_class_map
 from .img_extensions import get_img_extensions
-from .parser import Parser
+from .reader import Reader
 
 
 def find_images_and_targets(
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ def find_images_and_targets(
     return images_and_targets, class_to_idx
 
 
-class ParserImageFolder(Parser):
+class ReaderImageFolder(Reader):
 
     def __init__(
             self,
diff --git a/timm/data/parsers/parser_image_in_tar.py b/timm/data/readers/reader_image_in_tar.py
similarity index 97%
rename from timm/data/parsers/parser_image_in_tar.py
rename to timm/data/readers/reader_image_in_tar.py
index 4fcad797..001c9f4e 100644
--- a/timm/data/parsers/parser_image_in_tar.py
+++ b/timm/data/readers/reader_image_in_tar.py
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-""" A dataset parser that reads tarfile based datasets
+""" A dataset reader that reads tarfile based datasets
 
-This parser can read and extract image samples from:
+This reader can extract image samples from:
 * a single tar of image files
 * a folder of multiple tarfiles containing imagefiles
 * a tar of tars containing image files
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ from timm.utils.misc import natural_key
 
 from .class_map import load_class_map
 from .img_extensions import get_img_extensions
-from .parser import Parser
+from .reader import Reader
 
 _logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 CACHE_FILENAME_SUFFIX = '_tarinfos.pickle'
@@ -169,8 +169,8 @@ def extract_tarinfos(
     return samples, targets, class_name_to_idx, tarfiles
 
 
-class ParserImageInTar(Parser):
-    """ Multi-tarfile dataset parser where there is one .tar file per class
+class ReaderImageInTar(Reader):
+    """ Multi-tarfile dataset reader where there is one .tar file per class
     """
 
     def __init__(self, root, class_map='', cache_tarfiles=True, cache_tarinfo=None):
diff --git a/timm/data/parsers/parser_image_tar.py b/timm/data/readers/reader_image_tar.py
similarity index 91%
rename from timm/data/parsers/parser_image_tar.py
rename to timm/data/readers/reader_image_tar.py
index c2ed429d..6051f26d 100644
--- a/timm/data/parsers/parser_image_tar.py
+++ b/timm/data/readers/reader_image_tar.py
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-""" A dataset parser that reads single tarfile based datasets
+""" A dataset reader that reads single tarfile based datasets
 
-This parser can read datasets consisting if a single tarfile containing images.
+This reader can read datasets consisting if a single tarfile containing images.
 I am planning to deprecated it in favour of ParerImageInTar.
 
 Hacked together by / Copyright 2020 Ross Wightman
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ from timm.utils.misc import natural_key
 
 from .class_map import load_class_map
 from .img_extensions import get_img_extensions
-from .parser import Parser
+from .reader import Reader
 
 
 def extract_tarinfo(tarfile, class_to_idx=None, sort=True):
@@ -38,9 +38,9 @@ def extract_tarinfo(tarfile, class_to_idx=None, sort=True):
     return tarinfo_and_targets, class_to_idx
 
 
-class ParserImageTar(Parser):
+class ReaderImageTar(Reader):
     """ Single tarfile dataset where classes are mapped to folders within tar
-    NOTE: This class is being deprecated in favour of the more capable ParserImageInTar that can
+    NOTE: This class is being deprecated in favour of the more capable ReaderImageInTar that can
     operate on folders of tars or tars in tars.
     """
     def __init__(self, root, class_map=''):
diff --git a/timm/data/parsers/parser_tfds.py b/timm/data/readers/reader_tfds.py
similarity index 99%
rename from timm/data/parsers/parser_tfds.py
rename to timm/data/readers/reader_tfds.py
index f55f012f..7ccbf908 100644
--- a/timm/data/parsers/parser_tfds.py
+++ b/timm/data/readers/reader_tfds.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-""" Dataset parser interface that wraps TFDS datasets
+""" Dataset reader that wraps TFDS datasets
 
 Wraps many (most?) TFDS image-classification datasets
 from https://github.com/tensorflow/datasets
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ except ImportError as e:
     print("Please install tensorflow_datasets package `pip install tensorflow-datasets`.")
     exit(1)
 
-from .parser import Parser
+from .reader import Reader
 from .shared_count import SharedCount
 
 
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ def get_class_labels(info):
     return class_to_idx
 
 
-class ParserTfds(Parser):
+class ReaderTfds(Reader):
     """ Wrap Tensorflow Datasets for use in PyTorch
 
     There several things to be aware of:
diff --git a/timm/data/parsers/parser_wds.py b/timm/data/readers/reader_wds.py
similarity index 99%
rename from timm/data/parsers/parser_wds.py
rename to timm/data/readers/reader_wds.py
index 21bfc3e2..c0121dae 100644
--- a/timm/data/parsers/parser_wds.py
+++ b/timm/data/readers/reader_wds.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-""" Dataset parser interface for webdataset
+""" Dataset reader for webdataset
 
 Hacked together by / Copyright 2022 Ross Wightman
 """
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ except ImportError:
     wds = None
     expand_urls = None
 
-from .parser import Parser
+from .reader import Reader
 from .shared_count import SharedCount
 
 _logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
@@ -280,7 +280,7 @@ class ResampledShards2(IterableDataset):
             yield dict(url=self.urls[index])
 
 
-class ParserWds(Parser):
+class ReaderWds(Reader):
     def __init__(
             self,
             root,
diff --git a/timm/data/parsers/shared_count.py b/timm/data/readers/shared_count.py
similarity index 100%
rename from timm/data/parsers/shared_count.py
rename to timm/data/readers/shared_count.py