Information Standards: NISO Releases 2018 Update to “Strategic Directions” Document

From the National Information Standards Organization (NISO):

The Architecture Committee of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has published its 2018 update of the NISO Strategic Directions document which will be used by its leadership groups, the NISO Topic Committees, to direct the future development portfolios of standards and recommended practices.

The three NISO Topic Committees: Information Creation & Curation, Information Discovery & Interchange, and Information Policy & Analysis produced a list of general trends and themes in their respective areas of work, noting these information issues affecting libraries, publishers, system vendors and other members of the information distribution community. The document describes the inter-relations between these community stakeholders and, in some cases, potential overlaps in committee work.

The NISO Topic Committees are using the updated 2018 Strategic Directions document to prioritize potential future activities where NISO should be engaged in developing new standards and recommended practices.

The NISO Framework was developed in 2007 as an overarching model and roadmap for NISO’s standards work. To refresh the Framework, every few years, the NISO Architecture Committee and the Topic Committees that work under its guidance undertake a comprehensive review of their current and recent portfolios and discuss their overall scopes of work. This most recent review was augmented with a public stakeholder survey, which led to a restructuring of the Topic Committees to better ensure they appropriately address gaps in the information standardization landscape. After the Topic Committees reorganized with new names and modest shifts in their portfolios, they turned to updating the Strategic Directions document to ensure they are focused on the most current, developing and influential areas of work.

“NISO operates in a complex environment with many interrelated components and it is important to continue to verify that our work serves our stakeholders,” explains Keith Webster, Dean of Libraries at Carnegie Mellon University, Vice Chair of the NISO Board of Directors, and Chair of the NISO Architecture Committee. “The work over the past several months to update the Strategic Directions document has been a very fruitful exercise to ensure that Topic Committee members are focusing their efforts in the right areas.”

“We are pleased with the work the Topic Committees and Architecture Committee has done, as it concentrates our attention on the considerable standards work that needs attention,” states Todd Carpenter, NISO Executive Director. “We look forward to further planning and discussions based on the new Strategic Directions document to put into action the most effective standards development efforts. NISO will continue to encourage participation from libraries, content providers, and system vendors as these projects are advanced.”

Direct to NISO 2018 Strategic Directions Document

Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Libraries, Management and Leadership, News