Just as we follow the Library of Congress, MARBI and other library centered organizations through their standards making processes, it is wise to follow those few bodies setting online systems and web related standards. Two organizations to watch are the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

NISO

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is a non-profit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). NISO identifies, develops, maintains, and publishes technical standards used to manage information including retrieval, re-purposing, storage, metadata, and preservation.

NISO draws its support from the communities it serves. The leaders of over 70 organizations, including AALL, in the fields of publishing, libraries, IT and media serve as its voting members, serve on NISO committees and as officers of the association.

NISO sponsors pre-standardization workshops that bring together expert industry representatives to talk standards for a day. The result is a report with recommendations. The recommendation may suggest that a standards committee be formed. If formed, the committee then meets to draft the standard.

NISO believes that standards are a product of consensus which requires significant base-building that must go on to move a group to a common solution. Therefore, drafts of proposed standards are submitted to voting members of NISO for comments and approval and available to any involved party for comment.

When a standard is published, NISO announces this as widely as possible through a variety of electronic lists, to many industry news outlets, and on their web site.

Some NISO standards require a Maintenance Agency to register users, to assist in implementation of the standard and to provide information on any changes to the standard and advise on how to implement the standard. And all standards are reviewed on a regular basis at least five years after approval and revised as the information environment changes.

Topics NISO has begun to address include the implementation of the DOI, standards for machine-generated thesauri, library statistics for the Internet age, and networked reference services.

Standards can be tracked through the development process on NISO's website under the link "Standard's Pipeline". The site tracks standards in development, lists draft standards available for trial use, as well as those at ballot and at press. All approved and published standards are listed on the site as well as those that have been withdrawn.

W3C

The World Wide Web Consortium was created in October 1994 to develop common protocols that promote evolution and ensure interoperability. W3C has more than 500 Member organizations from around the world.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has developed more than 35 technical specifications for the Web's infrastructure. To understand how W3C pursues this mission, it is useful to understand the Consortium's goals and driving principles.

W3C does most of its work with an explicit mandate from the Membership. Members review proposals for work called "Activity proposals". These proposals define the initial scope and structure of an Activity. These proposals include a summary, a description of why this activity is being proposed now and its scope, a description of its initial deployment including timelines, duration, a summary of resources to be dedicated to the activity, intellectual property information, and a list of communities that would benefit from the activity. When there is consensus among the Members to pursue this work, W3C initiates a new Activity.

An Activity organizes the work necessary for the development or evolution of a web technology. Each Activity has its own structure that generally includes Working Groups, Interest Groups, and Coordination Groups. These groups may produce technical reports, review the work of other groups, develop sample code, etc. The progress of each Activity is documented in an Activity Statement. These statements describe the goals of the Activity, completed and unfinished deliverables, changing perspectives based upon experience, future plans, etc.

W3C Activities are generally organized into groups: Working Groups (for technical developments), Interest Groups (for more general work), and Coordination Groups (for communication among related groups). These groups produce technical reports, open source software, and services. These groups also ensure coordination with other standards bodies and technical communities. There are currently over thirty W3C Working Groups.

To facilitate management, the Team organizes W3C Activities and other work into five domains:

1. Architecture Domain: The Architecture Domain develops the underlying technologies of the Web.
2. Document Formats Domain: The Document Formats Domain works on formats and languages that will present information to users with accuracy, beauty, and a higher level of control.
3. Interaction Domain: The Interaction Domain seeks to improve user interaction with the Web, and to facilitate single Web authoring to benefit users and content providers alike.
4. Technology and Society Domain: The W3C Technology and Society Domain seeks to develop Web infrastructure to address social, legal, and public policy concerns.
5. Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI): W3C's commitment to lead the Web to its full potential includes promoting a high degree of usability for people with disabilities. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is pursuing accessibility of the Web through five primary areas of work: technology, guidelines, tools, education and outreach, and research and development.

A duration is specified in the Activity Proposal that defines when work must be completed. Criteria for participation in these groups require three things: technical competence in one's role, social competence in one's role and the ability to act fairly.

The standards created and maintained by NISO and the W3C have had and will continue to have a strong impact on the library community. Exchanging, encoding and preserving digital information falls under an increasingly broad spectrum of groups and organizations. While it is often said that the nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from, it is still important to understand the processes by which they are made and the ways we, as acquirers, organizers and preservers of information influence the result.

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