Standards Watch

Standards Wave

NISO has released a number of announcements about standards of particular interest to librarians, which have been forwarded to us by Cindy Hepfer, the ALA Voting Representative to NISO. In order to avoid a lot of repetition of instructions, I will include them all in this post, with enough information to pique your interest (I hope) in looking closer at them and perhaps commenting. Because these are NISO standards, you will be able to view and download them directly, rather than having to request them through Cindy.

In accordance with NISO procedures, all review ballots are accompanied by a recommendation from the responsible leadership committee. The first four standards are recommended for reaffirmation by NISO’s Content and Collection Management Topic Committee (Disclosure: I’m a member of that Committee). The last standard is recommended for reaffirmation by NISO’s Discovery to Delivery Topic Committee. When either committee has included some contextual information along with that recommendation, I’ve included it below.

NISO encourages us to provide comments with ALA’s vote that might provide the Topic Committees with additional information regarding use of the standards. The deadline for feedback to Cindy (HSLcindy@buffalo.edu) regarding these ballots is Jan. 6, 2010. Wouldn’t reading and commenting on one (or more) of these standards be a great thing to do for your community this holiday season?

1. Review of ANSI/NISO Z39.18-2005, Scientific and Technical Reports – Preparation, Presentation, and Preservation.

URL for download: http://www.niso.org/standards/z39-18-2005

2. ANSI/NISO Z39.19-2005, Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies.

URL for download: http://www.niso.org/standards/z39-19-2005

“This recommendation is made based on feedback of current use of this standard; the openness and availability of NISO standards; and because of the current activity in this area, particularly as relates to interoperability, with SKOS, and at the ISO level. At the ISO level, this standard relates to ISO 2788, Guidelines for the establishment and development of monolingual thesauri. There is also ISO 5864, Documentation — Guidelines for the establishment and development of multilingual thesauri. There is currently work underway to merge these two standards, into a new revised ISO standard, ISO 25964-1, Information and documentation — Thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies — Part 1: Thesauri for information retrieval. This is currently at DIS ballot, to close March 26, 2010. There is also a part 2 being developed, Information and documentation — Thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies — Part 2: Interoperability with other vocabularies. This is still in development.”

3. Review of ANSI/NISO Z39.29-2005, Bibliographic References.

URL for download: http://www.niso.org/standards/z39-29-2005

4. Review of ANSI/NISO Z39.84-2005, Syntax for the Digital Object Identifier.

URL for download: http://www.niso.org/standards/z39-84-2005

“This recommendation is made based on current activity related to this standard. At this time, the whole DOI system (syntax, resolution, metadata, and unifying infrastructures) is proceeding through ISO, with an expected publication in 2010. Following reaffirmation and upon finalization of the ISO effort, the Topic Committee will be studying the standard more closely to determine if revision might be needed for Z39.84. Feedback from the Z39.84 Maintenance Agency (the International DOI Foundation) regarding some changes needed to the standard has already been received. You are encouraged to provide comments with your vote that might provide the TC with additional information regarding needs for a revision or about current use of the standard. Please note that a revision can begin at any time following the reaffirmation of the current standard.”

5. Review of ANSI/NISO Z39.88-2004, The OpenURL Framework for Context-Sensitive Services.

URL for download: http://www.niso.org/standards/z39-88-2004

I hope that some of you will take up the challenge here and take a new look at some of these standards and make comments to Cindy (feel free to start discussions on the LITA-L list about any concerns you might have).

Diane I. Hillmann
LITA Standards Coordinator

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