International standards development
Gail Thornburg, Sally H. McCallum, Sue Ellen Wright, Herbert Van de Sompel, Peter Murray · Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · 2005
If you are a librarian or information scientist you must think globally (not regionally, not nationally) . Information knows no borders today. It is important that our standards – that enable resource sharing, collaboration, and interoperability – be consistent at the global level. It is also important that the U.S. influence and help shape these standards. Consolidation in the industry (mergers and acquisitions) is driving vendors to be global (not national or regional) in their thinking; serving customers/clients all around the world demands international standards The bottom line for U.S. businesses is that if they do not play successfully at the international level they run the risk of being “locked out” of very large markets such as China in the years ahead. It is a very competitive game internationally. This panel will sketch out how international standards are developed - who are the players and what is the process – and explain how ASIST members can be involved. The program will also introduce the audience to some of the most important international standards work in progress that have the potential to impact information services, such as MPEG (metadata, rights), JPEG (images), controlled vocabularies, terminologies, and many other issues.