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Quarterly Update on Technical Advisory Groups: Voting Members Only Event

Quarterly Update on Technical Advisory Groups

April 2021

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April 23, 2021, 1:00pm (Eastern Daylight Time (US & Canada)

An important feature of NISO’s work is to engage in international standards development activities through the International Organization for Standardization, ISO.  In such efforts, NISO plays several important roles.  The first is to represent US interests in the areas of Information and Documentation by serving as the ANSI-designated Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for the ISO technical committee doing work in this sector and its five subcommittees, as well as in document structures within information technology. The Technical Advisory Group is composed of US-based members of NISO, who are allowed to appoint members to working groups, and can review, then submit votes and comments on ISO projects. 

As gauged by member ballots and discussions with a variety of representatives, NISO members are unclear about NISO’s international work, its impacts, and how they should engage. The ISO processes can be cumbersome and confusing, with a particularly confusing jargon of document stages, acronyms and numbering systems. Despite this, the value of engaging on international standards development activities is crucially important. Many of the structures that undergird the information supply chain in publishers and libraries are standardized around the globe via ISO. Many of these systems need occasional extension and development, while others are needed to address advances in how information is created and shared.

The work of engaging in the NISO’s TAG work has primarily taken place through document consideration that takes place via email and individual members' review of documents, subsequently collected via NISO’s balloting portal. US TAG meetings, which take place via open teleconference or via NISO’s annual member meeting have generally been informative updates on plenary meetings. In order to improve NISO’s communication with members about TAG activities, NISO will be launching a roughly quarterly series of update meetings to discuss ongoing projects, upcoming meetings, and potential issues with standards being developed.

The first of these update meetings will be held on April 23, 2021 at 1:00pm. All representatives of US-based NISO members are welcome and encouraged to participate. The meetings will be recorded and made available to TAG members.  The primary topics of the first meetings will be an overview of NISO’s ISO work, the upcoming ISO Technical Committee on Information and Documentation (ISO TC 46) plenary meeting in May, and key topics on the agenda.  To register, please complete this form.