-----Original Message-----
>
>OpenSearch creator DeWitt Clinton spoke of it along these lines:
>standards bodies are good at formalizing what's become standard
>practice. (Paraphrasing) "If people don't already agree on what the
>standard is, then no committee will solve that...it shouldn't even go
>to committee."
>
It is absolutely the case that standards bodies do not create standards. That's not their role, and I think they know it. Standards bodies are in the business of creating a formal agreed standard from what has become common practice (which is often sorta standard but not quite) or of reconciling competing practices, and then promoting and maintaining the standard. Ideally standards bodies would run, or manage the running of, registries and other parts of the standards infrastructure.
The other thing they do is allow folks who weren't initially involved in the development of the standard to get their licks in. For example, the ISO puts a certain amount of effort into bringing developing countries into the standards-using community. NISO involves a community of vendors and their customers.
In the library world, standards are essentially agreements between libraries and their vendors. The vendors are great supporters of the standards process because it means that they can (supposedly) create a system based on a single data structure (like MARC) that will then be accepted by all of their customers.
The problem that we see today inthe library world is that when there is a standard that is rising up to the point of being useful and usable by many in our community, it isn't clear where to take it so that it can move from being a neat hack to being a community standard. NISO, as many have noted, takes too long to move a standard forward. LoC manages standards but doesn't have a good process for community involvement (e.g. MODS, where the only community input is a listserv). ALA apparently got out of the standards business about 20 years ago, and yet in theory would be an obvious body to promote library interests. It would be to our advantage to have a clear and smooth standards process.
kc
Karen Coyle - on the Road
kcoyle_at_kcoyle.net
skype: kcoylenet
Received on Fri May 11 2007 - 11:50:36 EDT