Standards Watch

New ISO Work Items

More catch up on standards announcements follow. Please note the separate deadlines for comments to Cindy Hepfer, the ALA Voting Representative to NISO.

1. TC46/SC9 New Work Item Proposal Thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies – Part 2: Interoperability with other vocabularies.

“This ballot is to approve a new work item for Part 2 of ISO 25964, which will deal with thesauri and other types of vocabulary that are commonly used for information retrieval. Part 1 of ISO 25964 is a merger and revision of two existing ISO standards — ISO 2788, Documentation — Guidelines for the establishment and development of monolingual thesauri, and ISO 5964, Documentation — Guidelines for the establishment and development of multilingual thesauri. The whole of Part 2 will cover new ground not previously covered in any international standard. A working draft of Part 2 is included with the proposal. It is proposed that the same working group currently developing Part 1 will also develop Part 2. (They are the developers of the working draft.) … This part of ISO 25964 deals with thesauri and other types of vocabulary that are commonly used for information retrieval. It describes, compares and contrasts the elements and features of these vocabularies that are implicated when interoperability is needed. It gives recommendations for the establishment and maintenance of mappings between multiple thesauri, or between thesauri and other types of vocabularies.”

From Cindy: “The U.S. representative on that working group is Marcia Zeng. If anyone would like to nominate someone else to also work on the project, please include the name and contact information in your comments.”

Deadline for comments to Cindy is Friday, July 9, 2010.

2. New project to revise ISO 11620:2008, Information and documentation-Library performance indicators.

“This ballot is to approve a new project to revise ISO 11620:2008 … the revision is proposed due to recent updates in related standards, both nationally and internationally, and to address new developments in digital library services.”

From Cindy. “If we vote to approve this standard, we need to identify a U.S. expert for the working group. If anyone would like to participate on this project or nominate someone else to participate, please include the name and contact information in your comments.”

The deadline for comments to Cindy is Friday, Aug. 6, 2010.

3. A new project to develop a new TC46/SC8 standard on Methods and procedures for assessing the impact of libraries.

“The proposed standard is intended to complement the existing set of standards for statistics and quality measures in libraries and information services. The intent is to define and describe methods for assessing and measuring the impact of libraries and library services. Though the methodology for assessing impact will be the main issue, a selection of tested “impact indicators” for specified services shall be added.”

From Cindy: “If we vote to approve this standard, we need to identify a U.S. expert for the working group. If anyone would like to participate on this project or nominate someone else to participate, please include the name and contact information in your comments.”

The deadline for comments to Cindy is Friday, Aug. 6, 2010.

As is usual with ISO standards, the documents are not available openly but must be requested through Cindy. Your request, sent to HSLcindy@buffalo.edu, must include a statement that you are an ALA member. Please also copy your request to me at metadata.maven@gmail.com, so that I can track LITA interest.

Diane I. Hillmann
LITA Standards Coordinator