NISO

Expanded name

National Information Standards Organization

Date of establishment

1939

URL

http://www.niso.org/ [external]

Objectives

NISO, the National Information Standards Organization is a not for profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). It identifies, develops, maintains, and publishes technical standards to manage information resources, with a particular emphasis on digital environment.

Areas of Activity

NISO develops standards which apply both traditional and new technologies to the full range of information-related needs, including retrieval, re-purposing, storage, metadata, and preservation.

Additionally it sponsors workshops on standards issues and emerging topics, often leading to the formation of committees to develop new standards.

NISO is the ANSI designated US representative on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee 46 (Information and Documentation).

Membership

NISO membership is through an annual fee, and enables members of the information professional community to enhance standards development and use through interaction, collaboration and commitment to development and use of standards.

Voting membership is open to corporations and non-profit organisations which serve libraries, with sliding scale fees dependent on the gross annual revenue of the organisation. Voting membership allows:

• Designation of a Voting Representative, and a deputy, to comment on and vote on all standards
• Participation in NISO standards committees and the US Technical Advisory Group to ISO (International Organization for Standardization) Technical Committee 46, Information and Documentation.
• Election of NISO Directors
• Voting at NISO business meetings
• Features and links on the NISO website, and references on standards

Library Standards Alliance Membership has an annual flat fee and is appropriate for libraries who wish to support the work of NISO. Benefits include early alerts on NISO activities, notification about sponsored workshops and training programmes and a subscription to the NISO newsletter,Information Standards Quarterly

Standards Sponsored

DOI

Z39.84 ANSI/NISO Z39.84 - Syntax for the Digital Object Identifier

Dublin Core

Dublin Core Metadata Element Set

NISO MIX

ANSI/NISO Z39.87 - Data Dictionary - Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images