Standards Watch

Recordkeeping Standards

Cindy Hepfer, hardworking ALA Voting Representative to NISO has forwarded to us a group of announcements related to ISO/DIS 16175, Information and documentation–Principles and functional requirements for records in electronic office environments. This is a Fast track ballot, used to create an ISO standard from an existing standard, in this case the International Council on Archives and the Australasian Digital Recordkeeping Initiative standard of the same title. Fast track standards are submitted for their first ballot at the enquiry (DIS) stage; if there are no negative votes, the standard can proceed directly to publication.

This ballot is in three parts:

Part 1: Overview and statement of principles
Part 2: Guidelines and functional requirements for records in electronic office environments
Part 3: Guidelines and functional requirements for records in business systems

As a reminder of the process: ALA is a voting member of NISO, while NISO is the official US voting member of other International Organization for Standardization (ISO) groups. On behalf of ALA, Cindy will be providing feedback to NISO as to whether ALA believes that NISO should approve or disapprove the standard. NISO staff will review and consider our feedback along with that received from numerous other voting members.

Because this is an ISO standard, access to the text for review is only available via Cindy (her email is: HSLcindy@buffalo.edu). Any ALA member who wishes to see a copy of the draft standard must explicitly state to Cindy that he/she is a current ALA member. (It helps me to provide activity information to LITA if you also copy me on your request at metadata.maven@gmail.com).

Deadline for comments to Cindy is Monday, May 17, 2010.

Diane I. Hillmann
LITA Standards Coordinator