Standards Watch

ISO 11799:2003, Document storage requirements for archive and library materials

My previous Standards Watch posting was for a standard of somewhat limited interest, but this next one is far more generally applicable to our work. It would be great to see some review of this standard by ALA members (particularly LITA members) with some interest in this area. As usual, this call was forwarded to us by Cindy Hepfer, who is the ALA Voting representative to NISO. Cindy notes in her message that this is looking like a particularly active period of time for NISO, and as a member of NISO’s Content and Collection Management Topic Committee, I can confirm that this is indeed the case and we’ll be seeing lots more review requests in the coming months.

This call is for ISO 11799:2003, Document storage requirements for archive and library materials, undergoing a systematic review. Our vote options are Confirm (as is), Revise/Amend, Withdraw (the standard), or Abstain (from the vote). Comments are required for all votes other than Confirm.
According to the introduction in the standard: “This International Standard applies to the long-term storage of archive and library materials, but takes into account that, as the materials are stored to allow current use as well, some compromise with the ideal conditions for long-term storage may be unavoidable.”

As is usual in these ISO reviews, ALA members should contact Cindy directly at HSLcindy@buffalo.edu if they would like to review the standard in response to this call (I’d appreciate being copied, if you’re responding as a result of this post).

Comments are due to Cindy by Nov. 25, 2008.