TC 46 2011 Year in Review

NISO has been the U.S. liaison group for the International organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee 46 (TC46) on Information and documentation for decades. Officially designated by ANSI as the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for TC46, NISO submits the U.S. votes and comments on all TC46 standards, based on the ballot results from the U.S. TC46 TAG members. (NISO voting members that are incorporated (or otherwise legally registered) in the U.S. are members of the TAG.) In 2011, NISO submitted U.S. votes and comments on 13 draft standards, 12 systematic reviews, and 4 new work items. Additionally, comments were provided on 11 standards from other ISO committees that are in a liaison relationship with TC46. NISO responded, with input from U.S. SC11 members, to a national activity survey regarding use of SC11 standards and voted on 4 administrative items, such as committee chairs. This article summarizes the work of TC46 and its four subcommittees during 2011.

TC46 Information and documentatIon

Secretariat: Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR)

The TC46 plenary meeting was held on May 6, 2011 in Sydney Australia.

Country codes (ISO 3166)

This three-part standard undergoes continuous updating through the ISO 3166 maintenance agency, with participation from the united nations. changes are published in newsletters and incorporated into the formal standard when the different parts undergo their systematic reviews.

• Three updates were published for Part 1 (Countries). These included changes in the full, long names of Fiji and Myanmar; a second Romanized name of Bulgarie for Bulgaria; assignment of new codes (SS and SSD) for South Sudan; and an official name change to Libya (from Libyan Jamahiriya Arabe).

• One update was published for Part 2 (subdivisions). Changes were made to 50 countries’ information, including administrative areas, languages, and source lists.

Standards confirmed:

• ISO 3166-2:2007,codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 2: country subdivision code

• ISO 3602:1989, Information and documentation – Romanization of Japanese (Kana script) [In early 2012, DIN proposed a revision to this standard.]

• ISO 11940-2:2007 Information and documentation–Transliteration of Thai characters into Latin characters – Part 2: Simplified

Systematic review completed; standard confirmation pending:

• ISO 9:1995, Transliteration of Cyrillic characters into Latin characters – Slavic and non-Slavic languages

• ISO 233:1984, Transliteration of Arabic characters into Latin characters

• ISO 233-2:1993, Transliteration of Arabic characters into Latin Characters – Part 2: Arabic language – Simplified transliteration

• ISO 259:1984, Transliteration of Hebrew characters into Latin characters

• ISO 259-2:1994, Transliteration of Hebrew Characters into Latin characters– part 2: Simplified transliteration

• ISO 9985:1996, Transliteration of Armenian characters into Latin characters

• ISO 11940-2:2007, Transliteration of Thai characters into Latin characters – Part 2: Simplified transcription of Thai language

• ISO 15919:2001, Transliteration of Devanagari and related Indic scripts into Latin characters

Projects underway:

• Revision of ISO 8, Presentation of periodicals

• Revision of ISO 5127, Information and documentation – Terminology

• Revision of ISO 11799, Document storage requirements for archive and library materials

SC4 Technical Interoperability

Secretariat: Standards of New Zealand

The SC4 plenary meeting was held May 2, 2011 in Sydney, Australia

At the end of 2011, Standards of New Zealand relinquished the Secretariat. The Finnish Standards Association (SFS) was approved in early 2012 as the new Secretariat.

Standards published:

» Revision of ISO 15511, International standard identifier for libraries and related organizations (ISIl)

» ISO 28560, RFID in libraries (in 3 parts)

Standards confirmed:

» ISO 2709:2008, Format for information exchange

Projects underway:

» Revision of ISO 21127, a reference ontology for the interchange of cultural heritage information

SC 8 Quality – Statistics and performance evaluation

Secretariat: Deutsches Institute für normung (DIN)

SC8 plenary meetings were held May 2, 2011 in Sydney, Australia, and September 9, 2011 in Helsinki, Finland.

Systematic review completed; standard confirmation pending:

» ISo9707:2008,Statistics on the production and distribution of books, newspapers, periodicals and electronic publications

Projects underway:

» Revision of ISO 2789, International library statistics

» Revision of ISO 11620, Library performance indicators

» ISO 16439, Methods and procedures for assessing the impact of libraries

» ISO/TR 11219, Qualitative conditions and basic statistics for library buildings – Space, function and design

» ISO/TR 14873, Statistics and quality issues for web archiving