New and Emerging Specs & Standards (April 2026)
ISO/PAS 25955:2026 — Information and documentation — Technical interoperability — Data Documentation Initiative (DDI)
Technical Committee: ISO/TC 46/SC 4
“This document describes the shared and interoperable features of the standards and other products under the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI). The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) is an ongoing program within the social, behavioural and economic (SBE) data community for documenting SBE data. The program is managed by a consortium, the DDI Alliance, that comprises university data libraries, university and national data archives, research centres, national statistical offices, consultancies, and software development organizations. The suite of products under DDI include several standards and other products designed to describe data and the processes used to produce them. DDI first began in 1995 to build a framework for describing a codebook, the document describing the variables, questions, code lists, classifications, methodologies, and usage guidance used to collect, organize, and delimit the data in research studies. This document was built using XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and first released in 2001 as DDI-Codebook (DDI-C). It has been updated periodically since and the current version is numbered 2.5.”
ISO 12234-4:2026 — Digital imaging — Image storage Part 4: Digital negative format
Technical Committee: ISO/TC 42
“This document specifies the Digital Negative (DNG) image file format. A DNG file meets the requirements provided in this document. Advanced and professional photographers often choose to capture and edit photos in raw format, for additional flexibility and artistic control. Unlike display-referred formats (such as JPEG, PNG, and TIFF) which store images that have already been processed by the camera, raw formats store unprocessed or minimally processed data directly from the camera sensor. This enables photographers to adjust many parameters to taste, including white balance, tone mapping, noise reduction, sharpening, and so on. Photos in raw format are analogous to film negatives in a photographer’s workflow, so they are often referred to as “digital negatives.” The purpose of this document is to define a standardized file format for storing raw photographs.”
ISO 18937-3:2026 — Imaging materials — Methods for measuring indoor light stability of photographic prints Part 3: LED lamp exposure
Technical Committee: ISO/TC 42
“This document describes test methods for measuring the light stability of photographic prints when subjected to LED illumination sources under conditions that simulate indoor display. This document is applicable to all types of colour and monochrome photographic reflection prints. This document does not include test procedures for determining the effects of light exposure on the physical stability of images, supports or binder materials. NOTE 1: It is recognized that in some instances, physical degradation such as support embrittlement, image layer cracking, or delamination of an image layer from its support, rather than the stability of the image itself, will determine the useful life of a print material. NOTE 2: General guidance and requirements are given in ISO 18937-1.NOTE 3:Tables 1 and 3 of LED lamp relative spectral irradiance were created using spectra from phosphor-converted blue LED lamps. Other types of LED lamps that meet the criteria of Tables 1 and 3 are also in the scope of this document.”
ISO/IEC TS 20071-40:2026 — Information technology — User interface component accessibility Part 40: Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)
Technical Committee: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 35
“This document provides an introduction to and basic guidance on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) in the information and communication technology (ICT) domain. It also provides common definitions and a framework for the development of further, more detailed guidance relating to aspects of these AACs. This document recognizes that AAC can be delivered on various ICT devices and the importance of consistency for users across devices. It applies to AAC software and not the devices on which the software is used. This document recognizes that AAC provides many users with a unique form of communication that is not necessarily based on any specific natural language.”
ISO/TS 27790:2026 — Health informatics — Document registry framework
Technical Committee: ISO/TC 215
“This document specifies a general-purpose document registry framework for transmitting, storing and utilizing documents in clinical and personalized health environments. It is quite broad in its applicability to realise the goal of sharing health-related documents spanning a broad spectrum of health domains such as healthcare specialities covering laboratory, cardiology, eye care, etc. and the many areas of personalized health. This document also supports shared document registration and retrieval via the federation of documents’ registries (IHE Cross-Community Access) in terms of individual users to reduce health information extrusion possibilities. This document supports the sharing of documents of any standardized content in the context of healthcare and well-being. It describes the means of locating and accessing shared documents among a diverse set of health organizations. It is designed to leverage existing health informatics for structuring and semantically rich health information, if so desired. It does not require the development of new health informatics standards.”
Group Note: Use of Large Language Models in Standards Work [W3C]
"The Advisory Board has published Use of Large Language Models in Standards Work as a Group Note. As Large Language Models (LLMs) become increasingly synonymous with ‘AI,’ and are used by people within our community, the Advisory Board wants to highlight considerations around different ways in which LLMs can be useful or problematic when it comes to leveraging them in standards work at W3C. This document summarizes the Advisory Board’s current thinking, as of 24 March 2026.”
Resource: Sifting the Digital Heap: A Scoping Study of AI for Government Archives [dh+lib review]
“Lise Jaillant, Matthew Kidd, and Lingjia Zhao (all Loughborough University) have shared their report, ‘Sifting the Digital Heap: A scoping study of AI for government archives – access, backlogs, and responsible practice,’ via Zenodo. Their report details the GLOW scoping study, part of the overall LUSTRE project, which has the overall aim to ‘connect policy makers with Computer Scientists, Digital Humanists and professionals in the GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums).’ From the paper abstract: ‘AI can play a decisive role in making digital government records more accessible and manageable, provided that its use is grounded in responsibility and clear purpose. Work is already underway across archives and government, where AI is being used to manage scale, improve accuracy, and enhance public access to digital records – including email, PDFs, spreadsheets, images, scanned documents, audiovisual assets, and social media posts. Building on these foundations, the GLOW study identifies four interlinked priorities for responsible and effective adoption.’”
