Standards Watch

Formation of Voting Pools for NISO Standard Reaffirmations

This is the third in a series of messages regarding voting pools for NISO standards reviews, transmitted from Cindy Hepfer, ALA Voting representative to NISO.

The text of this new ballot sent to NISO voting members is as follows:

“This is the third group of standards due for five-year reviews for which NISO will be issuing ballots. In accordance with NISO procedures, we are offering you the option of joining the voting pool for two of those standards that are under the responsibility of the Content and Collection Management (CCM) Topic Committee.”

[Full disclosure: I’m a member of the NISO Content and Collection Management Topic Committee.]

Joining the voting pool allows ALA to vote on the standard and provide comments. Once the voting pools have been formed, separate ballots for each standard will be issued only to those who have joined the pool. NISO needs at least 15% of the voting membership to join the pool. If less than 15% express interest in the standard, it may be considered by the Board for administrative withdrawal.

The two standards in this voting pool ballot are:

ANSI/NISO Z39.2 – 1994 (R2001), Information Interchange Format
http://www.niso.org/standards/z39-2-1994R2001/

ANSI/NISO Z39.47 – 1993 (R2003), Extended Latin Alphabet Coded Character Set for Bibliographic Use (ANSEL)
http://www.niso.org/standards/z39-47-1993r2003/

Since these are both important seminal standards for libraries, ALA will opt in to the pools unless a compelling case is presented to Cindy by Dec. 18, 2008 (the ballot closes Christmas week).

Diane I. Hillmann
LITA Standards Coordinator