ISO Focus, April 2008.Pdf

ISO Focus The Magazine of the International Organization for Standardization Volume 5, No. 4, April 2008, ISSN 1729-8709

Information and document management

• Oracle’s success “ depends on standards ” • New standard for IT disaster recovery Contents

1 Comment Catherine Dhérent, Chair, ISO/TC 46, Managing information in a changing age 2 World Scene Highlights of events from around the world 3 ISO Scene Highlights of news and developments from ISO members

Focus 4-2008.indd 1 02.04.2008 17:38:01 4 Guest View Mr. Sergio Giacoletto, Executive Vice President of Oracle ISO Focus is published 11 times a year (single issue : July-August). Corporation, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) It is available in English. 8 Main Focus Annual subscription 158 Swiss Francs Individual copies 16 Swiss Francs

Publisher ISO Central Secretariat (International Organization for Standardization) 1, ch. de la Voie-Creuse CH-1211 Genève 20 Switzerland Telephone + 41 22 749 01 11 Fax + 41 22 733 34 30 E-mail [email protected] Web www.iso.org • Keeping pace with the times – From books to the Internet Manager : Roger Frost • Facilitating discovery, interaction and collaboration of Acting Editor : Maria Lazarte knowledge banks Assistant Editor : Janet Maillard • Can machines be smart? Artwork : Pascal Krieger and • Harnessing the power of Web 2.0 in enterprises Pierre Granier • Reducing complexity in business processes ISO Update : Dominique Chevaux • Identifying media content Subscription enquiries : Sonia Rosas Friot ISO Central Secretariat • Coding the world Telephone + 41 22 749 03 36 • Records – Essential business enablers Fax + 41 22 749 09 47 • Quantifying quality – Information providers measure up E-mail [email protected] • Geneva’s municipal libraries adopt RFID and use ISO/IEC 15693 for tracking books © ISO, 2008. All rights reserved. • Archival boxes for long-term document storage The contents of ISO Focus are copyright and may not, whether in whole or in part, be reproduced, stored in a retrieval 36 Development and Initiatives system or transmitted in any form or Focus on an ISO partner – the Swedish International by any means, electronic, mechanical, Focus 4-2008.indd 1 14.03.2008 14:30:30 photocopying or otherwise, without Development Cooperation Agency • Fully Networked Car written permission of the Editor. workshop addresses climate change The articles in ISO Focus express the views of the author, and do not necessarily reflect 39 New on the shelf the views of ISO or of any of its members. New ISO standard will make crossing the street safer for disabled persons • Managing crises with new ISO standard for ISSN 1729-8709 Printed in Switzerland IT disaster recovery Cover photo : iStock. 41 Coming up ISO Focus April 2008 Comment Managing information in a changing age

nformation and document manage- why Web archiving experts recently It would be fruitful experience ment is a crucial part of the daily launched a new standard project on for ISO to first coordinate the man- Ifunctioning of any organization. the identification of data packets dur- agement of its own documentation in It plays an important role in ensuring their transfer to a virtual archive relation with that of its national bod- ing their performance and security, as in the context of OAIS. ies. The great challenge is to identi- well as promoting efficient relation- fy what must be preserved, for what ships between them. However, creat- purpose and for how many years and ing, finding and communicating the “ Improving the production, where? We must not waste time nor most relevant information to the audi- classification and money. It is crucial that we immedi- ences who really need it through the ately provide the right information to most appropriate and simple means, organization of documents the right person. is no easy feat. Which results in many and data is essential to people complaining that information avoid wasting human and is too widely spread, not easy to find, identify or criticize. financial resources.” Several ISO technical committees are working to respond to these This identification is in fact crucial for exchanging data adequate- challenges, by addressing issues from ly, and for managing intellectual and the identification to the preservation economic rights. In fact, it is neces- of the content and of metadata, by way sary to identify all elements of infor- of their production and organization. mation in the greatest detail, so as to This is especially true, of course, for deal in the most appropriate manner the electronic formats of informa- with the rights of authors, production. Here the available support is ers and publishers, while at the same often more fragile than the worst and time providing exactly what the pub- most acid of papers. We need strong lic requires. best practices to preserve electronic data and documents in the middle and We are now able to identify long terms. even the smallest part of an author’s Catherine Dhérent, work, which, though it can be made Chair, ISO/TC 46, Information and A widely recognized basic ISO available to all interested parties (on standard which addresses this issue is documentation the Web for instance), still ensures a OAIS (Open Archive Initiative Stand- fair retribution and acknowledgement ard). It was originally proposed by the of its author. At the same time, there aerospace industry, anxious to maintain is also an ongoing attempt to iden- permanent access, understanding and tify authors, producers, publishers reusability of the huge amounts of data and others, a more delicate task, as it it produces (and requires), which can involves the description of individu- span decades or even centuries. als rather than their work. The purpose of this general mod- The improvement of the pro- el is to establish a system for archiving duction, classification and organiza- information (both digitized and phys- tion of the main documents and data is ical), with an organizational scheme also essential to avoid wasting human composed of people who accept the and financial resources. It is the aim responsibility of preserving informa- of the records management standards tion and making it available to a des- to help institutions better produce the ignated community. information needed to prove their This model must now be com- rights and obligations towards their pleted by other users, which explains stakeholders.

ISO Focus April 2008 1 World Scene

ISO and IEEE strengthen under pressure to produce to enhance the development, partnership deliverables to address com- effectiveness, harmonization mercial and regulatory needs. and uptake of documentary ISO and the Institute of Electri- Because of the diversity of standards broadly relevant to cal and Electronics Engineers interests, standardization activ- the measurement and charac- (IEEE) have signed an agreement ities in this field involve a mul- terization of nanotechnologies. to increase their cooperation (From left) Joe Bhatia, ANSI President tiplicity of stakeholders globally. See : http://www.iso.org/ in developing international and CEO, Michael Levitt, US nanotech-workshop standards. The agreement ini- In this context, ISO, the Inter- Secretary of Health and Human tially focuses on the subjects national Electrotechnical Services, and Alan Bryden, of information technology, Committee, the US National Interoperability – Key to ISO Secretary-General, visiting the intelligent transport systems Institute for Standards and healthcare management “interoperability showcase”. and health informatics. Measurement, and the Organi- The Healthcare Information sation for Economic Co-oper- and Management Systems plary of public-private collab- ation and Development organ- Society (HIMSS), the USA- oration and global cooperation. ized a workshop in Maryland, based healthcare industry’s USA, in February 2008 on membership organization, He visited the “ Interoperability documentary standards for focused on providing global Showcase ” with Mr. Michael measurement and characteri- leadership for the optimal use Levitt, US Secretary of Health zation of nanotechnologies. of healthcare information and Human Services, where an array of application tools to The workshop thus aimed to technology and management systems – representing 20 000 support the “ Integrated Health foster dialogue among the var- Enterprise ” was on display. In ious organizations involved to : individual members and over 300 corporate members. his keynote address, Mr. Levitt • exchange information on emphasized the importance of existing standards and pro- HIMSS held its annual meeting standards for optimizing Director, Terry deCourcelle (far left), grammes ; in February 2008 in Orlando, healthcare services in the USA, and Program Manager, Jodi Haasz, Florida, USA. The event which represent 15 % of the (third from left) of IEEE Standards • identify short- and medium- term needs and priorities ; and attracted 28 000 participants overall GDP. Association’s International and 900 exhibitors, an all-time Standards Program, welcomed to • identify mechanisms to facil- record. Interoperability for ISO Central Secretariat by Kevin itate information sharing, the processing and exchange ISO 22000 at McKinley, ISO Deputy Secretary- cooperation and coordination of health data was at the heart international food safety General and other ISO/CS officers. in this area. of the event, which highlighted conference The PSDO (partner standards In particular, the workshop the role and need for standards A compilation of development organization) highlighted the pressing need to increase efficiency and selected ISO arti- cooperation agreement between for the development, validation reduce administrative costs. cles and press the two organizations aims to and approval of standardized During his presentation in a releases on the optimize stakeholder resources methods for physico-chemical “Views from the top” session, ISO 22000 series in the development of stand- characterization of manufactured ISO Secretary-General Alan of standards for ards where both ISO and IEEE nanomaterials to support human Bryden illustrated the role of safe food supply have expertise, and to shorten and eco-toxicology testing. international standards in rela- chains was their time-to-market. The made available During the workshop, its 70 tion to the globalization of Ad Food safety-2008.indd 1 agreement facilitates processes to participants healthcare issues. He reviewed 31.01.2008 16:02:54 Selection of Press releases.i participants, all with top-level ndd 3 for the joint development of ISO’s extensive contribution at the 2008 expertise in the field and rep- 27.03.2008 10:39:2 standards and for adopting International Food Safety 9 resenting all key organiza- in this field – some 800 each other’s standards. Conference, organized by CIES tions involved in nanotechnol- standards – and focused on (Food Business Forum) in ogies standardization (includ- current developments related ISO Secretary-General Alan Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in ing chairs and convenors from to health cards and electronic Bryden commented : “ Strength- February. ening partnerships with stand- nine ISO technical committees), health records, among others. ards development organizations agreed on a number of actions Mr. Bryden underlined the The three-day conference having a global reach is one to be collectively undertaken active partnerships of ISO/TC drew some 580 participants of ISO’s strategic objectives 215, Health informatics, with in from around the world, bring- and this agreement with IEEE Participants at the nanotechnologies particular IEEE and HL7 as exem- ing together food safety spe- will help to optimize resources, workshop in Maryland, USA. cialists, retailers and others shorten timeframes and reinforce active in the food sector. the collection of ISO Interna- The focus of this year’s con- tional Standards in a coherent ference was “ Creating value and consistent manner.” from food risk management ”. Discussions of key food safe- Moving forward on ty issues highlighted, among nanotechnologies other factors, the importance Given today’s high interest in of auditor competence, regu- nanotechnologies, standard lations, packaging, life cycle developers are increasingly and social responsibility.

2 ISO Focus April 2008 ISO Scene

US perspectives on al harmonization of methods for Seychelles, Swaziland, Tanzania, while enabling utilities to benefit ISO standards and public calculating energy performance. Zambia and Zimbabwe. After from increased efficiency, cost policies Mr. Bryden held meetings with the seminar, participants report- savings and satisfied customers. ed that they felt well equipped The Secretariat is held by the The visit of ISO Secretary- the governance and management of ANSI, ISO’s member for the to apply the knowledge gained Standards Institution of Israel. General Alan Bryden to the to their local circumstances. Both initiatives were proposed USA in February 2008 provided USA in Washington, D.C., as well as in New York, where he Mr. Stephan Wehr, Director by COPOLCO, the ISO com- an opportunity to capture the mittee on consumer policy. expectations and positions of also visited the Under Secretary GHG Services for the Delphi key federal administrations General of the United Nations, Group, Canada, was the guest Finally, ISO/PC 242 was estab- on international standards in Mr. Sha Zukang, in charge of speaker. Presentations were also lished to develop a standard pro- support of public policies. economic and social affairs, delivered by local authorities in viding a practical approach to with whom the numerous and the standards development area, increasing energy efficiency, successful collaborations between local industries and project reducing costs and improving the UN and ISO systems were developers. The event was co- energy management by organi- underlined, along with the support organized with the South Afri- zations. The Secretariat will be consensus-based standards bring can Bureau of Stantards held jointly by ANSI (USA) and to public policies. (SABS), and received financial ABNT (Brazil). contributions from the Swiss st Southern Africa State Secretariat for Economic ISO 31 General better equipped to tackle Affairs (SECO). Assembly climate change At the invitation of the ISO New consumer and (From left) Mr. Alan Bryden, ISO A regional seminar focusing on member for the United Arab Secretary-General ; Mr. Joe Bhatia, ISO 14064 and ISO 14065 used energy initiatives Emirates (UAE), the Emirates ANSI President and CEO ; for accounting, reporting and In order to protect consumers Authority for Standardization Dr. Edward Hammond, Chair of verification of greenhouse gas from ineffective product recalls and Metrology (ESMA), ISO HL7 ; Mrs. Frances Schrotter, ANSI emissions, and the accreditation and debt from billing, while will hold its 31st General Assem- Senior Vice-President ; Mrs. Audrey of the bodies undertaking these helping organizations increase bly from 12 to 17 October 2008 Dickerson, Secretary of ISO/TC activities, took place in Johannes- efficiency, customer loyalty and in Dubai. 215 ; Dr. Yun Sik Kwak, Chair of burg, South Africa, in February energy efficiency, ISO has created ISO/TC 215. 2008. three new project committees to develop standards in these areas. At the US Trade Representative, Following on the series of semi- contacts with the unit dealing nars already delivered by ISO in The first, ISO/PC 240, will with technical barriers to trade Brazil and Colombia, the event develop a standard for imple- enabled a clarification of ISO’s aimed to provide project devel- menting an effective and flexi- contribution to areas such as opers, validators and verifiers ble, customer-oriented product food safety, health, biotechnology, with a detailed overview of recall programme, with guidance social responsibility and con- these standards – expected to be on corrective actions. The stand- formity assessment. The visit important tools for addressing ard will assist businesses to min- highlighted the active involvement climate change. Special focus imize legal risks, while contrib- of US stakeholders and standards was given to the Southern African uting to customer satisfaction, organizations in ISO. context. and protecting consumers from unsafe and inadequate products. At the Department of Commerce, Over 80 representatives participat- The Secretariat has been the focus was on the involvement ed, among them from countries assigned to the Department of As part of the General Assem- of industry in the development in the Southern African Devel- of ISO standards and the need to Standards Malaysia. bly, there will be a full-day open opment Community, including session on 15 October on the delineate clearly the comple- The second, ISO/PC 239, will Botswana, Democratic Republic theme of “ Buildings for a sus- mentarity between consensus- develop a standard for a trans- of Congo, Kenya, Madagascar, tainable future ” – an innovative based standards, technical regu- parent utilities billing informa- Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, and rapidly changing sector for lations and public policies. tion and enquiry redress system. which the need for globally rele- Mr. Stephan Wehr, (third from right) Its customer-oriented approach The meeting at the Department vant solutions has been recog- of Energy focused on the latest guest speaker, with some of the can help prevent consumer debt, regional participants. nized, and which has also been ISO developments related to the subject of special focus energy efficiency and renewable in the UAE for the last few years. sources, in particular the creation of a project committee to Associated meetings of DEVCO develop an international standard (ISO Committee for developing on energy management – with a country matters), TMB (Technical joint ANSI and ABNT (Brazil) Management Board) and Council secretariat, and the anticipated will take place during the week involvement of European coun- of the General Assembly. tries and China. This high priori- Participation is reserved for rep- ty initiative for both developed resentatives of ISO members and developing countries will be and invited international organi- complemented by the internation- zations.

ISO Focus April 2008 3 Guest View Sergio Giacoletto

ergio Giacoletto is Sergio Giacoletto : Throughout Executive Vice President its history, Oracle has benefited Sof Oracle Corporation, from, and participated in, devel- Europe, Middle East and Africa oping international standards. (EMEA), and serves as a Shortly after releasing the mar- member of Oracle’s Executive ket’s first commercial Relational Management Committee. Mr. DataBase Management System Giacoletto oversees a network (RDBMS), Oracle’s Ken Jacobs 1) of 139 offices in 58 countries, worked with representatives from and is responsible for managing leading IT businesses of the time Oracle’s operations, growth and (including Bull, DEC, Honeywell, profitability throughout EMEA. IBM, ICL, NCR, and Univac, as well as independent software ven- Mr. Giacoletto took over this dors) to define the first standard position in the year 2000. Since for SQL (Structured Query Lan- then, he has pioneered a campaign guage, see Box). to assist new European Union member states and candidate Because SQL standards countries gain technological were developed in open interna- advantage; he has initiated a tional standards forums, start- programme bringing Oracle’s up businesses – which Oracle products to the smaller enterprises was 30 years ago – have been that form a significant part of the able to contribute over the years. European and regional economies ; Today, Oracle remains engaged and has driven a corporate in maintaining and extending social leadership programme SQL standards along with virtu- providing sponsored education ally every provider of RDBMS and support to schoolchildren products and with users from the and students in the region. public and private sectors. Although Oracle started in the Prior to his current appointment, “ Our success depends US, within a very short time a substan- Mr. Giacoletto was Senior Vice on hundreds of standards tial portion of the company’s revenue President, Business Solutions for Oracle allowing our products came from other regions. Because of Europe, Middle East and Africa. the international SQL standard, Ora- to function in today’s cle can produce a single product for Mr. Giacoletto joined Oracle in 1997 from the worldwide market. In today’s glo- AT&T, where he was President, Value complex technological bal economy, international standards Added Services. Previously, he spent 20 ecosystem.” are even more essential. Indeed, the years with Digital Equipment Corporation. idea of country or region-specific soft- Mr. Giacoletto has served on multiple ISO Focus: What is the strategic value ware standards seems naïve. Develop- company boards and IT industry of international standards to an enter- ing economies are realizing that while associations. He is a member of the prise like Oracle that for about 30 planning for success, trying to protect World Council for Sustainable Business years has been helping customers to emerging industries through standard- Development and of the South African manage their business systems and ization is not only bad policy, but dis- Presidential International Advisory information in innovative ways ? In the advantages successful enterprises when Council on Information Society and rapidly evolving field of software devel- they try to sell into the much larger Development. He holds a Master’s opment, have you seen an evolution in worldwide market. Degree in Computer Science from the the benefits you derive from interna- Oracle’s involvement in stand- University of Turin, Italy. tional standardization ? ardization goes well beyond SQL. Our

4 ISO Focus April 2008 nizing early that the “ Internet changes everything ”, Larry Ellison 2) charted a course for Oracle to lead the industry in recognizing the importance of the Inter- net for enterprises. While this recognition was exceptional at the time, today it is understood that enterprise software systems cannot remain isolated information silos. Customers demand that their information can be accessed across systems, regardless of vendor. Today, Service-Oriented Archi- tectures (SOA) incorporating middleware and XML-based data interchange Saint-Gobain headquarters at “ Les Miroirs” in standards provide enterprise application the business district of La Défense, Paris. interoperability. The World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C) developed XML, the fundamental standard for defining Web pages, as a simplified subset of an Structured Query Oracle headquarters, Redwood City, Language (SQL) California, USA. ISO/IEC Structured Query Language (SQL) standards define a database computer language designed for the retrieval and management of data in relational database management systems, database schema creation and modification, and database object access control management. The standards have been published as several parts of the ISO/IEC 9075 series (Information technology – Database languages – SQL).

success depends on hundreds of standards that allow our products to function in today’s complex technological ecosystem. Customers demand products that interoperate, and interoperability is achieved through global standards. Because of the importance of standards, Oracle has approximately 315 engineers participating in over 375 technical work- Sergio Giacoletto : At a very basic level, ISO standard language, SGML (Standard ing groups in at least 56 standards set- all of today’s IT infrastructure relies on Generalized Markup Language). This is ting forums. We are investing more in fundamental international standards for an illustration of the symbiotic relation- standards today than ever before. items such as character codes, bit rep- ship among the formal standards bodies resentations, communication protocols, like ISO and the diversity of standards and data representation. Standards from setting organizations employed by the ISO Focus: Oracle was a pioneer in ISO, the International Electrotechnical worldwide software industry. developing and implementing fully Commission (IEC) and the International Internet-enabled enterprise software Telecommunication Union (ITU) provide across its range of product lines. the foundation for the Internet, creating 1) Ken Jacobs is Vice President, Product How have ISO information technol- an environment where interoperability is Strategy, Server Technologies Division. ogy standards contributed to Ora- possible at ever-higher levels. From 1985-1993, he represented Oracle on cle’s development in this area ? What With the dawning of the Internet the American National Standards Institute added value do international stand- age, interoperability at the “application” (ANSI) SQL Standards committee. ards bring to Oracle ? layer became more essential. Recog- 2) CEO, Oracle Corporation.

ISO Focus April 2008 5 Pioneer in Internet- Guest View enabled enterprise software Oracle is an international Less well recognized is that, while encourage wide adoption, such as no cost benchmark for database technology international standards help interopera- or very low cost distribution of standards and applications in enterprises bility at technical levels, they also cre- to all potential implementers. ate positive pressure for a global market throughout the world. The company for technology. With the Internet, IT sys- is the world’s leading supplier “ Standards from tems are no longer regional; they become of software for information global as soon as they are connected. management, and the world’s ISO, IEC and ITU provide ISO standards like Unicode permit enter- second largest independent software the foundation for prises to run one system and service the company. Oracle technology can globe, creating economies of scale, and be found in nearly every industry, the Internet.” lowering barriers to participating in glo- and in the data centres of 98 of It is unlikely that the IT indus- bal markets. the Fortune 100 companies. Oracle is the first software company to try will abandon standards setting consortia. Ideally, Oracle would like to see develop and deploy 100 % Internet- the formal and consortia standardiza- “ Oracle has about 315 enabled enterprise software tion forums work more closely togeth- across its entire product line: engineers participating er . By exploiting the strengths of each, database, business applications, in over 375 technical the IT industry can continue to provide and application development and the world with standards-based produc- working groups in at least decision support tools. tivity enhancing products. 56 standards setting Innovation drives Oracle’s success. forums.” Oracle was one of the first companies to make its business ISO Focus : The landscape of informa- applications available through tion technology industry standards is the Internet – an idea that is among the most complex and fragment- now pervasive. Today, Oracle Real ed, due inter alia to the nature of the Application Clusters, Oracle Fusion industry and to its history. Although IT Middleware, Oracle E-Business Suite, continues to be an extremely dynamic Oracle Grid Computing, support for sector, today it can also be considered enterprise Linux, and Oracle Fusion to a large extent “ mature ” and highly all fuel a commitment to innovation pervasive. A rationalization of the and results that has defined Oracle standards infrastructure, more stable for 30 years. and fully open interoperability frameworks would benefit IT users and the majority of IT vendors (if not all). What is Oracle’s view ? What could be done to nically superior standard will be useless increase the efficiency, the openness if it is not incorporated in products sold and the comprehensiveness of the IT and used by customers. Time-to-market standardization infrastructure ? pressure requires participants in standards setting processes to quickly reach Sergio Giacoletto : Just as for standards consensus. If consensus is not possible, ISO Focus: CRN magazine has recent- and products, the marketplace for stand- one common outcome is that disagreeing ly recognized Oracle as one of sixteen ards setting organizations (SSOs) is com- parties splinter their efforts and develop “high-tech green giants” – companies petitive. The diversity of IT standards set- competing standards – a situation that in the field of technology that are “vis- ting options is a result of that competition. often delays adoption of technology due ible advocates for environmental In general, benefits to customers and busi- to customer confusion. responsibility, espousing green poli- nesses offset the costs of dealing with the Examining ways to lower barriers cies for natural resource use and waste complexity of the IT standards setting eco- for adoption of software standards may disposal, product design and life-cycle system. While Oracle generally prefers to help to rationalize the complex IT stand- pursue standardization objectives under the ardization infrastructure. During the last principles.” How has the implementa- ISO umbrella, we engage in SSOs wherev- 30 years we have observed that for the tion of ISO 14001 by Oracle in 14 er work relevant to our customers’ require- software industry, standards that offer countries contributed to this achievements is underway. royalty-free use of essential technology ment? What active role can companies The ease of creating new standards (with other reasonable terms) are more play in preserving the environment, setting efforts raises the stakes for adop- likely to be widely adopted and imple- and how do you see the role of ISO tion in the software industry. Unfortunate- mented. ISO might also consider other environmental standards contributing ly, the most carefully designed and tech- characteristics of non-formal SSOs that to this goal?

6 ISO Focus April 2008 institutional barriers to new work, seek to streamline processes, and consider adopting some of the characteristics that make consortia attractive. This does not mean that ISO should abandon its fundamental national body structure or forsake its basic tenets of openness, level play- ing field and due process. Rather, ISO should seek to broaden its constituen- cy while retaining its compelling value equation of a single international standard recognized worldwide. “ International standards create positive pressure for a global market for technology.”

In addition to the standards that Oracle incorporates into its products, we depend on a foundation of IT hard- ware and software that can be deployed globally. To the degree that national or regional standards mandate alternative interfaces, we have to modify our prod-

(Left) Communication. ISO Focus : In Oracle’s view, what (Above) Retail. fields would you like to see ISO develop (Right) Financial services. in the future ? What new ISO standards would Oracle envision as useful tools Sergio Giacoletto : Oracle has developed to help it meet its goal of continual an environmental management system, innovation and leadership ? spanning five key areas : water, energy, transportation, waste and procurement, Sergio Giacoletto : It is hard for an which provides the foundation for our organization like ISO to identify the efforts. ISO 14001 certification initia- next important areas for standardiza- tives form part of this overall system, tion. Technology providers, recognizing and that we have gained certification to a need and seeking a forum for defining ISO 14001 has been a key part of our a solution, start most IT standards ini- plans. Another important element to our tiatives. Unfortunately, the IT industry efforts is environmental awareness train- has generations of engineers who have ucts to accommodate the differences. ing for employees, focused on the need participated in standards setting but nev- These differences impose additional for personal action to “ reduce, re-use er worked under the ISO umbrella. For cost and result in slower time to mar- and recycle ”. These efforts and Oracle’s these professionals, the default decision ket, with no functional benefit for our continued drive to optimize our environ- is to take the next standards initiative to customers. Anything ISO does to facil- mental resource utilization has helped the consortia in which they worked in the itate international IT standards, wheth- us improve processes and reduce costs. past. They and their managers need rea- er or not they directly impact our prod- ISO environmental standards not only son instead to initiate the next standardi- ucts, benefits Oracle as well as the entire provide guidance on key areas to ana- zation effort – XML, Web services, – or IT industry. lyse, but can also provide useful stimu- whatever is hot – within an ISO forum. lus for organizations. Toward that objective, ISO should remove

ISO Focus April 2008 7 Main Focus Keeping pace with the times – From books to the Internet

by Sally H. McCallum, Information former Chair of ISO/TC 46/ SC 4, Technical interoperability and document hen ISO technical committee ISO/TC 46 changed its name Wfrom Documentation to Infor- management mation and documentation in 1990, it was responding to changes in the technical environment, especially the introduction of the Internet and the Web. These changes affected where information was recorded and how it was transferred. ISO/TC 46 had always dealt with information, specializing in standards to help package, manage, preserve and retrieve it. However, the emphasis was on textual information that was usually in a clearly recognizable document form. Today, information takes many forms, and participants in ISO/TC 46 are ensuring that the committee’s standards are relevant to the ever-changing information environment.

Challenges and opportunities brought by change It is by no means the first time that ISO/TC 46 has dealt with change. In the 1960s, when computers were emerging from research institutions into the business world, and with the release of affordable computers, ISO/TC 46 developed a standard for the structure of the data that describes information resources. And that standard is still used around the world today. Now in its third edition, ISO 2709:1996, Information and documentation – Format for information exchange, has endured because, at a time when fixed-length fields and records were the norm, it incorporated innovative features that enabled the recording of var- iable length data.

8 ISO Focus April 2008 Focus 4-2008.indd 1

Information and document management

ISO/TC 46 is today finalizing In the 1970s, ISO/TC 46 mined of end-user access to infor- 14.03.2008 14:30:30 a new version of ISO 2709 that takes the knowledge and experience of its doc- mation. In the last decade, advantage of the Web’s Extensible umentation professionals to develop a identifier systems have been Markup Language (XML), making it number of script repertoires, for which established for music, audio more compatible with newer Internet they established computer encodings. recordings and video recordings, join- protocols. These were implemented by informa- ing earlier and well-established identi- The ISO 2709 standard has been tion organizations and were referenced in fiers for books and journals. And more key to automation of access to library the 1990s, when computer professionals are under development, including iden- holdings and exchange of information began development of a universal char- tifiers of parties who create information between our cultural institutions, whilst acter set, ISO/IEC 10646:2003, Infor- resources, which will assist in assur- also enabling the robust development of mation technology – Universal multiple- ing the observance of authors’ rights. businesses that serve those institutions octet coded character set (UCS). Follow- Today, as the Internet and Web environ- on a global scale. ing the availability of the UCS, ISO/TC ment explores the creation of a seman- 46 began to withdraw its sets, which had tic Web, these identifiers will provide filled the gap for many years. essential components for referencing Ground-breaking electronic resources. Already, the dig- initiatives ital object identifier (DOI) system has Another ISO/TC 46 ground- “ ISO/TC 46 is ensuring become an important identifier for jour- breaking activity addressed the need for that the committee’s nal articles in many new Web services. character sets of many of the world’s standards are relevant (See also “ Identifying media content ”, scripts, for use in the computer envi- page 21.) ronment. When early computers first to the ever-changing began to take over many information information environment.” organization tasks, the services of librar- “ The traditional standards ies and other related institutions had A third area in which ISO/TC 46 of ISO/TC 46 are still to be restricted to the Latin alphabet seized the initiative was the development – the only one available in the compu- of computer-to-computer protocols for necessary.” ter environment at the time. For exam- applications that are basic to informa- ple, in order to achieve full automation services, search and retrieval and Counting in tion of its applications, the Library of interlibrary loan. The search and retriev- the digital age Congress in the USA found itself no al protocol, ISO 23950:1998, Informa- longer able to produce cataloguing data tion and documentation – Information Even the traditional statistics in a dozen or more scripts. Instead, it retrieval (Z39.50) – Application serv- standards for libraries and publishers, had to transliterate them all into the ice definition and protocol specification, first developed in the 1970s by ISO/TC Latin script. is implemented in information centres 46, have undergone a revolution with around the globe today, helping infor- the development of additional rules for mation seekers to bridge the difficul- counting electronic resources (discussed About the author ties associated with searching multiple in the article by Roswitha Poll on page information sites, each with a different 27). These new methodologies for statis- Sally H. local design. tics have been a difficult challenge since McCallum is Other technical initiatives cur- the resources are intangible. However, the Chief of the rently under exploration by the techni- when an institution’s budget is dependent Network Devel- cal committee are standards for regis- on statistics showing how many services opment and tries, for archiving Web sites, and for and resources it provides to the public, MARC Stand- radio frequency identification (RFID) these standards become very important ards Office at application in libraries (see “ Geneva’s – both to show the way to count and to the Library of municipal libraries adopt RFID and use satisfy management’s need to indicate Congress in the validity of counts. Washington, ISO/IEC 15693 for tracking books ” on D.C., USA. page 30). All of these will help information institutions leverage today’s Inter- Her office is responsible for the devel- The preservation net and Web environment. opment and maintenance of technical of records application standards that are used by An area of interest for ISO/TC the library and information communities, Evolving with the times often worldwide. She is the former 46 that has a relatively short history is Chair of ISO/TC 46/SC 4 and has served ISO/TC 46 has evolved from a records management. Taken up by the for many years as the head of the United committee that dealt mainly with paper committee in the late 1990s, subcommit- States delegation to the ISO/TC 46 documents to one that provides essential tee SC 11, Archives/record management, plenary meetings. standards for various media, in support has had remarkable success in finalizing

ISO Focus April 2008 9 Main Focus five standards for this important area. instead, search engines such as Google Records management – which is neces- Facilitating and Yahoo have become the most popu- sary in most institutions, whether cul- lar starting points. tural or business – was in need of stand- discovery, But users still access the resourc- ards that recognized the changing form interaction and es of these traditional knowledge banks, of the records themselves, with e-mail albeit indirectly, through Web pages, and various electronic documentation collaboration of search engines, portals or e-learning sys- replacing printed records (read more tems. This trend underlines the critical on this subject in “ Records – Essential knowledge banks importance of interoperability to ensure business enablers ”, page 25). that the systems, services and collections offered by libraries, museums and by Alison Elliott, Chair archives are accessible to today’s infor- Codes – the backbone of ISO/TC 46/SC 4, Technical mation seekers. for retrieval interoperability Interoperability refers to the ISO/TC 46 has also been the home ability of systems and organizations for many years of standards for country ccessing the Web in search of infor- to work together. Diverse information codes and language codes that are used mation and services opens doors sectors can be made interoperable in a around the world for a variety of applica- Ato a rich diversity of resources variety of ways – through product devel- tions, not all of them related to the infor- from a seemingly limitless pool of sup- opment, through partnerships between mation and documentation communities. pliers. Studies show that libraries, infor- industry and community, through access For example, to help their customers track mation centres, archives and museums to intellectual property and technol- shipments, Federal Express uses IATA are no longer likely to be the first place ogy, and through the implementation country codes, which are those of ISO people turn when they need information ; of standards. 3166-1:2006, Codes for the representation of the names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1 : Country codes. When these codes are applied to the description of information resources, they enable the users of libraries and archives and customers of booksellers to zero in on items that are truly useful to them in an increasingly large sea of material. (See “ Coding the world ” on page 23, for the story of these codes.)

Taking in the traditional and the new This has been a quick trip through the interests of ISO/TC 46 and its evolution from the print and paper concerns of libraries, archives, publishers, information agencies and record keepers, to standards that deal with the escalating amount of electronically-available information spawned by the computer, Inter- net, and Web developments. But even as the newer media are explored, it should be noted that book and journal production does not diminish. Books, thus far, have not translated well into electronic form, so the traditional standards of ISO/TC 46 are still necessary – including those for title pages, indexes, abstracts, paper permanence, document storage, and binding.

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Information and document management

ISO technical committee ISO/TC The purpose of the models is to concepts and relationships 14.03.2008 14:30:30 46, Information and documentation, has assist with database development or the understandable to managers a significant role to play in facilitating development of other standards. Some and service developers. technical interoperability. The standards examples are the draft standards ISO For cultural heritage it develops provide valuable guidance to 8459, Information and documentation – institutions, the recently published ISO those involved in creating digital infor- Bibliographic data element directory, and 21127:2006, Information and documenta- mation and services. ISO 2146, Information and documentation – A reference ontology for the inter- tion – Registry services for libraries and change of cultural heritage information, related organizations. establishes guidelines for information From libraries to ISO 8459 will provide common exchange between museums, libraries definitions for data elements exchanged in and archives. museums protocol messages between bibliograph- ISO/TC 46 is responsible for the ic systems. These messages can initiate “ ISO/TC 46 has a standardization of practices relating to or support processes such as the acqui- libraries, information centres, archives, sition of collection materials, resource significant role to play publishers and indexing and abstracting description and cataloguing, searching, in facilitating technical services. ISO/TC 46’s subcommittee 4, and requesting loans or copies by a library interoperability.” Technical interoperability, develops tech- patron or a library. nical standards used to facilitate interop- ISO 2146 will assist in the devel- Another significant area of work erability of information services provided opment of registry services when they are is in the development of standards relat- by those organizations. The subcommittee needed for delivery of information and ing to data structures. An example of produces three types of standards : mod- documentation services. It will provide this is ISO 2709:1995, Information and els, data structures and messages. an object-oriented data model to make documentation – Format for information exchange, which specifies requirements for a generalized exchange format to hold records describing every form of material that can be described bibliographi- cally. The standard describes a framework designed specially for communication among data processing systems. ISO 2709:1995 is widely used in the information community to enable global interchange of metadata.

Facilitating interlibrary loan transactions The messages that facilitate interoperability between systems are the focus of another area of standards development. An example of this is the Interlibrary Loan (ILL) protocol, provided by : • ISO 10160:1997, Information and documentation – Open systems intercon- nection – Interlibrary Loan Applica- tion Service Definition • ISO 10161-1:1997, Information and documentation – Open systems inter- connection – Interlibrary Loan Appli- cation Protocol Specification – Part 1: Protocol specification • ISO 10161-2:1997, Information and documentation – Open systems inter- connection – Interlibrary Loan Appli- cation Protocol Specification – Part 2: Protocol implementation conformance statement (PICS) proforma.

ISO Focus April 2008 11 Main Focus

By using ILL protocol-compliant The countless benefits ies from other libraries supplements the systems, libraries involved in interlibrary of interoperability requesting library’s local collection, ena- loan transactions can progress through them bling it to meet its users’ needs without in an orderly and defined manner. For many years, libraries, muse- having to purchase every item required ums and archives have invested substantial by a user. resources in development of online cata- Interoperability of information Digital archiving enters logues and databases, and in collections. services allows libraries, museums and the scene Interoperable systems allow these institu- archives to maximize opportunities for tions to minimize the cost of building cat- While libraries and related organi- the exchange and reuse of information, alogues and databases, while maximizing zations have long had a need to exchange both within their own organizations and the inherent value of the assets. data, the requirement to archive vast quan- externally. Where an organization has tities of “ born digital ” material is much multiple separate content repositories more recent. To respond to this need, a “ Development of technical and catalogues, users can find informa- working group is currently developing a tion through a single search only if their new standard: ISO 28500, Information and interoperability standards respective systems can interoperate. Inter- documentation – WARC (Web Archive) is critical to improving operability also enables a library to pro- file format. Once approved, the standard (information) discovery and vide users with access not only to items will provide a means to structure, manage held in its own physical and digital collec- and store billions of resources collected delivery.” tions, but also to resources held elsewhere from the Web and elsewhere by memory that it licenses or recommends. Interoperability enables the devel- institutions such as libraries, museums Interoperability between a library’s opment of new Web-based products and and archives. The WARC format will be catalogue and a bibliographic utility, such services that allow users to search across used to build applications for harvest- as the Online Computer Library Center the information resources held in multi- ing, managing, accessing and exchang- (OCLC), allows a library to import into ple institutions. Such products and serving digital content. its catalogue copies of records for items ices do not require users to know where added to its collection, thus reducing the information is held, nor to learn a varie- library’s cataloguing costs. Standards-com- ty of interfaces to discover the informa- pliant interlibrary loan systems facilitate tion they seek. This of course reduces resource sharing between libraries. The user barriers. ability to efficiently obtain loans and cop- Many of the collaborative initiatives in the library sector are dependent on the ability of libraries to transport metadata About the author from one institution’s system to another. A union catalogue of library holdings of Alison Elliott is a region or country is one such collabo- Director, Content rative initiative that relies on the ability Services, at the to interoperate. OCLC’s Worldcat is the National leading example of a union catalogue. Library of New A union catalogue allows information Zealand. She seekers to locate libraries that hold items has held a num- they require. ber of different In short, interoperability enables positions at the information discovery by users, facili- Library, focus- tates delivery of information, supports ing on services to libraries. As Director, interaction between users and informa- Content Services, one of Ms. Elliott’s tion systems, and facilitates collaboration key roles has been the extension of legal amongst libraries, museums and archives. deposit to electronic publications and The continued development of technical the redevelopment of New Zealand’s interoperability standards is critical to improving discovery, delivery, interac- online national bibliography, Publications tion and collaboration. New Zealand. As director with responsibility for information strategy, Ms. Elliott has overseen projects to develop the Library’s brand strategy and its National Digital Heritage Archive. She has also sponsored its Web redevelopment project.

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For our purposes, 14.03.2008 14:30:30 ontologies are (Web) content of a domain, represented in a structured way, using a standardized formalism. The content is described in the form of concepts and their possible and varied relations with one another. This enables organization of domain knowledge for sharing, reuse and further processing. Confused yet ? Consider your- self clever.

Hip and new – everybody wants it Even among advocates of ontologies, astoundingly few can claim to fully grasp the situation. The field is too complex. Moreover, reliable and useful information is hard to come by for the layperson. For the casually interested, the wealth of lit- erature and discussion is likely to create confusion. The result is a steady increase in half-information which does not help to foster real understanding. The problems start with the rampant use (and abuse) of the term itself. “ Ontol- ogy is the trendy term ”, says an ISO Focus article (see “ Practical business solutions for ontology data exchange ”, ISO Focus, December 2007). It is hip and new, and the idea what an ontology is (and suspect it players in every domain want to use it. Can machines be to be just another empty buzzword), and smart ? those who embrace the study of ontologies, believing ardently in the potential of “ ISO/TC 37’s strengths lie information and communication technology to improve society, economy and the in its long experience in by Anja Drame, Administrative future of humankind (and who may still terminology and concept Assistant, Secretariat of ISO/ believe it to be just a buzzword). systems methodology, as The term ontology has its origins TC 37, Terminology and other in philosophy, but has been adopted in well as its focus on content language and content resources computer science and information sci- aspects and cultural ence to indicate the representation of a ou should be warned before you set of concepts within any given domain1) diversity.” go any further, that this article is and the relationships between those con- Yabout “ ontologies ” – a concept cepts. It is used to reason about the prop- Some experts understand ontolo- that at first exposure might confuse even erties of domains. gies to be a type of knowledge organiza- the very clever. Everyone else risks being Ontologies are used in artificial tion system, together with concept sys- downright lost. intelligence, the semantic Web, software tems (as used in terminology science), This is unfortunate, because dis- engineering, biomedical informatics, classifications, thesauri, nomenclatures, cussions about ontologies abound every- library science and information archi- topic maps, and so on. Some see the term where, from climate change debates to tecture as a form of knowledge repre- as an umbrella for all these types, while epidemic control projects to e-commerce. sentation. others do not make any distinction at all. These days, ontologies tend to be a topic The result is that nearly everyone now claims to “ have an ontology ”, although in most global communication activi- 1) The official ISO/TC 37 definition of a ties. domain is : “ field of special knowledge ”, what they really have is probably just a In fact, I might add that people can often used synonymously with “ subject field ” good old concept system as has existed be roughly divided into those who have no or “ field ”. in terminology for decades.

ISO Focus April 2008 13 Main Focus

Furthermore, a variety of meth- Berners-Lee, the originator of the World Bringing clarity into ods have evolved, following very differ- Wide Web, as a universal medium for infor- the mess ent approaches from ontology engineer- mation and knowledge exchange. ing, translation (machine translation and The semantic Web aims to enable The active involvement of ISO/TC translation memory systems) or language machines to actually understand meaning 37 in ontology work formally started in engineering traditions (e.g. WordNet, TBX in Web documents, albeit on fairly prim- August 2007, when a group of specialists and markup languages). All of these try itive levels. As a simple example, in the drawn from the committee formed a task to keep pace with the rapid expansion of semantic Web a search engine would find force to discuss the most pressing problems knowledge across domains. However, related concepts along with the search and identify ways to address them. The as expressed by Dr. Christian Galinski term. So if I tell my computer that I want members of this group have backgrounds of ISO technical committee ISO/TC 37, to send a letter from Hyderabad to Frank- in concept systems and semantics, various Terminology and other language and con- furt, it would be able to lead me to rele- ontology application areas (lexicography, tent resources, most projects re-invent the vant sites for postal services, perhaps in translation, etc.), computational sciences wheel again and again, causing them to English, Urdu and Telugu – even though and databases, and computational linguis- lag perpetually behind. none of that was explicitly stated in the tics. For years, ISO/TC 37 has networked search question. How ? Because the Web with other committees that are also con- would have understood that “ letter ” is cerned with ontologies, most notably ISO/ Smart machines a concept related to postal service, that IEC JTC 1/SC 32, Data management and So we may think we know what Hyderabad is the capital of the Indian interchange, ISO/TC 184/SC 4, Industrial we are talking about when referring to state of Andhra Pradesh, in which those data, and ISO/TC 215, Health informat- ontologies. But do we really ? Will an three languages are dominant. ics, as well as a number of strategically international standard on this one help us But to achieve that, the Web important industry associations, such as out of the mess ? While a common glo- needs our help in organizing the world’s the World Wide Web Consortium. A few bal ontology would be ideal to achieve knowledge, and this is where ontologies years ago the committee extended its title semantic interoperability, this solution play a role. and scope from the classical terminology is simply impossible to create and main- aspects towards including other forms of tain in light of the rapid development of structured content. knowledge and technology. Not forgetting the human ISO/TC 37’s strengths lie in its Semantic interoperability refers to factor long experience in terminology and con- the ability of two or more computer systems cept systems methodology, as well as The semantic Web has been con- its focus on content aspects and cultur- to exchange and accurately interpret infor- ceived primarily in terms of machine- mation without the need for human inter- al diversity. This committee’s adoption to-machine communication. However, of the topic will ensure that the diver- vention. It is thus crucial for the retrieval, since it is based on natural language, it reuse and sharing of information – which sity and multilingual aspects of ontol- also has to deal with the realities of tra- ogies – frequently neglected by more is the actual goal of using ontologies. ditional human communication. The semantic Web is a next genera- technology-oriented committees – are Although the primary language considered at last. tion Web technology envisioned by Sir Tim of the semantic Web is still English, this trend is rapidly changing. Today, an excel- lent command and precise use of English Providing practical tools About the author is required. Will that be good enough? In Among the first priorities is to the future, more and more other languages put together an overview of the current Anja Drame is – some with completely different linguis- situation, with the aim of bringing clar- an expert in tic features and writing systems, such as ity into the mess, to establish or deepen intercultural Chinese – are likely to dominate. cooperation with other relevant stand- communication. For any technology to catch on, the ards developers, and to strive towards She works as a human factor must not be forgotten. And freelance con- consensus among the different fields humanity is diverse – not only cultural- and traditions. It is not an easy task we sultant and ly and linguistically, but also in terms of project manager have before us, but a challenging and age, gender, education, physical capabil- for various very important one. ity, and much more. Human beings com- international And while some will still not be NGOs, universi- municate in countless different ways. This convinced of its benefits, the need for ties and institutions. She also writes means that machines, with their need for ontology work is increasing. More and about communication topics. In ISO/ exact structures, must be equipped with more people will make use of the tech- TC 37 she is the administrative assistant user interfaces adapted to the many facets nology. And with its standards providing of the secretariat and she is project leader of the real world. Ontologies should help practical tools, ISO/TC 37 will not only of ISO 29383, Terminology policies – address this need by providing the neces- help them to do so with less hassle than Development and implementation. sary representation of knowledge to en- they face today, but will, at the same time, Contact: [email protected] able machines to function smartly. help develop the semantic Web.

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Information and document management 14.03.2008 14:30:30

Harnessing the power of Web 2.0 in enterprises

by Tom Jenkins, Executive Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer of Open Text

f you have not heard of Web 2.0, you have no doubt heard one of the terms Iin the new lexicon it has spawned – social networks, blogs, wikis, RSS, mashups, Facebook, YouTube. The older among us, those that weathered the dot. com years, might shrug off Web 2.0 as just the latest wave of Internet hype. But that would be a big mistake. Web 2.0 is different. And it’s here to stay.

“ Web 2.0 is different. And it’s here to stay.”

Over the last few years, Web 2.0 has spread fast among consumers. Statis- tics generated by Technorati 1) show that there are more than 70 million blogs today, and the number is growing. The effects are already being felt in the workplace, as organizations struggle to understand how these new technologies are changing the expectations and behaviours of their staff – and do not necessarily view them as positive. Outright bans in the workplace are destined to fail, while organizations that embrace Web 2.0 in a considered fashion can gain powerful new productivity and collaboration tools, and create deeper connections with customers and partners. For anyone concerned about the application of standards in business processes and systems, the implications are enormous.

1) An Internet search engine for searching blogs.

ISO Focus April 2008 15 Main Focus

A shift in culture its skeptics by demonstrating that a par- Corporate payoff from ticipatory approach to harnessing col- For the upcoming generation Enterprise 2.0 lective intelligence, combined with an having just entered, or about to enter, almost radical sense of trust in others’ With all its risks, does Web 2.0 the workplace, Web 2.0 technologies contributions and intentions, can pro- make sense for the corporate world? Yes, provide an important new way of com- duce one of the most reliable and com- in fact, Web 2.0 might be just what communicating and sharing information. prehensive information resources. panies need to help them address their Web 2.0 represents more than a change most pressing competitive challenges. in technology. It is bringing a cultural Companies operate in a fast-paced, high- shift in the way people work, collabo- Opening the door to ly competitive global economy. rate and share knowledge. A premium Enterprise 2.0 Day-to-day work in organiza- is placed on complete openness and the tions often depends on project teams The cultural shift embodied in free flow of information. that are scattered around the globe and Web 2.0 is adding an extra twist to a The lives of many are becoming across time zones. Today’s corporations major generational “changing of the an open book – with their friends, inter- are more decentralized, with growing guards” that is already underway in the ests, the information they are accessing legions of remote workers, who can workplace, as baby boomers begin to and the groups they are joining, all avail- operate effectively from anywhere, retire. In their place comes a new gen- able for the world to see. Trust in oth- thanks to pervasive access to wireless eration with different expectations and ers is a hallmark of the Web 2.0 world. broadband. a Web 2.0 workstyle. This is charac- Consider Wikipedia, which confounded The growing demand to increase terized by a strong sense of openness, productivity, together with the rapid rate group contributions and a blurring of of innovation, requires a new approach the lines between the social and profes- to work that fits nicely with the Web 2.0 sional worlds – which runs counter to About the author model, emphasizing transparency, col- the traditional corporate model. laboration and knowledge sharing over Tom Jenkins is siloed knowledge hoarding. Executive Chairman and “ There is a clear need to Chief Strategy define standards that can Officer for Safe for the enterprise Open Text, a help guide organizations on So it is clear that Enterprise 2.0 global leader in best practices.” can benefit companies. Indeed, soft- enterprise ware vendors are already creating solu- content manage- tions that can help make Enterprise 2.0 ment (ECM) Does this mean that the hyper- a reality in corporations. The prima- software. collaborative Web 2.0 culture is on a col- ry challenge now is to apply the tech- Mr. Jenkins has been involved with the lision course with the corporate world? nology in business processes in a way Internet since it emerged as a major That depends on how well organiza- that will produce the benefits, yet also public network in the early 1990s. As tions prepare. But there is no question address the compliance, legal and policy CEO of Open Text, he was instrumental that companies can benefit from Web issues that are highly important in large in the creation of one of the first Inter- 2.0 technology. Some companies are net search engines that was used by organizations. While Web 2.0 disciples already using the technology to create Netscape, Yahoo! and IBM. Mr. Jenkins might cringe at such a thought, the idea internal and external Web sites, engag- went on to direct the development of the that Web 2.0’s “Wild West” ways can ing personalized experiences that can first Internet-based document management work unbridled in a large and regulated system, as well as the earliest versions improve brand loyalty and interaction, corporation is not realistic. Companies of Internet-based workflow, portals and promote customer and partner con- are not going to adopt Enterprise 2.0 if online meeting software – all early fore- nections, and recruit and retain talent. it means throwing regulatory and legal runners of current ECM technology. And organizations can use the tech- cautions out of the window. Mr. Jenkins has also co-authored three nology to improve knowledge-sharing books on ECM (http://www.opentext. and collaboration, so that employees com/corporate/ecm-book.html). can be more productive in their work Getting the best of both He holds an M.B.A. in technology lives. In fact, there’s a relatively new worlds management from York University in term to describe Web 2.0 in the enter- There are ways to bridge this dif- Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Prior to this prise – Enterprise 2.0. Furthermore, a ficult divide. Enterprise content man- achievement, he received an M.A.Sc. lot of work is already underway in the in electrical engineering from the software industry (including at Open agement (ECM) software is the prin- University of Toronto and a B.Eng. and Text) to develop useful ways to apply cipal software for managing large vol- Mgt. in technology and commerce from Web 2.0 in organizations. umes, and many versions and variants McMaster University in Hamilton, of documents, e-mails and other con- Ontario, Canada. tent in large organizations. It offers the

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Information and document management tools to categorize and manage infor- ground up. Part of the core approach is The idea of standards 14.03.2008 14:30:30 mation according to legal and compli- the recognition that all content is not runs counter to the Web 2.0 ance rules. created equally, nor is equal risk asso- culture, but, here again, we Open Text is an industry lead- ciated with it. Enterprise 2.0 content have to view the use of these er in ECM, especially in the records needs to be retained for varying peri- technologies in the corporate context. management and compliance systems ods of time. A pharmaceutical company working on needed by companies to manage con- However, retention periods should a new drug, for example, cannot have tent in accordance with complex rules be determined based on the content employees discussing details of the new and policies. For us, Enterprise 2.0 is itself, and not according to the specif- drug on Facebook or MySpace. about bringing the worlds of ECM and ic format, methods of creation or dis- There needs to be a balance and Web 2.0 together, so that companies tribution, which continue to prolifer- the time is right for standards that can can gain the best of both. ate. Organizations are challenged to help companies find the right balance. sift out the unimportant content, and Web 2.0 is here and, one way or another, retain important content for an appro- it will find its way into organizations. Building the right priate period of time. The lifecycle of The opportunity to harness the real power strategy collaborative content can be differenti- of Web 2.0 should not be missed. In order to be successful, a strate- ated into three different phases. gy for Enterprise 2.0 must be built with- • Active phase – during the short active in an organization’s larger strategy for phase, people work with the infor- ECM and information governance. At mation contained in the Enterprise its core, all information is similar, but 2.0 environment such as wikis ; they how it is accessed, revised, shared and respond to blogs and create conver- associated with other information can sation threads. be quite different. Organizations need to • Reference phase – during the ref- look carefully at rules, policies and pro- erence phase, Enterprise 2.0 con- cesses and how they should be applied tent is retrieved from the file store as in an Enterprise 2.0 context. required. Copies of content are pub- Enterprise 2.0-generated con- lished with access to different ver- tent has many of the same information sions based on the file plan of the risks that were discovered with e-mail content. in the late 1990s. Using the principles developed for e-mail, and the proper • Evidence phase – during the evidence use of content management technol- phase, Enterprise 2.0 content is pri- ogies to preserve and destroy records marily retained in case of a need to within the organization, it is possible address regulatory or legal concerns. to create similar governance, risk man- A blog, or an instant message from agement and compliance (GRC) pro- a chat room, is a business record in cesses for Enterprise 2.0 content and many contexts, and must therefore collaboration. be retained for the same time peri- Many applications within Enter- od as any other record in the same prise 2.0 involve the sharing of unstruc- classification. Retention (and dispo- tured content, including documents sition) policies can be purely inter- and image files. A particular challenge nal, or imposed by a regulator. for the GRC process is that Enterprise 2.0 applications, by their very nature, operate outside of business applications The need for standards and departments, cutting across tradi- As companies wrestle with the tional boundaries in an organization. Enterprise 2.0 challenge, there is a clear This makes the challenge of develop- need to define standards that can help ing, monitoring and managing policies guide organizations on best practices. more complicated. Providing process and policy standards based on the information – not on The lifecycle of the technology – can help organizations with the difficult and continual- collaborative content ly evolving challenges of managing all The growing Enterprise 2.0 this new content, building the required risk management problem needs to processes, and developing policies for be addressed fundamentally from the appropriate use.

ISO Focus April 2008 17 The voice of the user Main Focus • “ We are building gas and steam turbines to last for decades and we have to provide continuous plant maintenance and spare parts supply for the entire lifecycle ”, says Gerd K., responsible for product classification and description at a major international turbine manufacturer. • “ It was a big investment and it took a lot of discussions to set up a corporate-wide product classification and description based on standardized properties. But the payback started immediately and is persistent ”, states Walter F., Director R&D of a European equipment manufacturer. • “ Our analysis turned up a list of similar pipe-fittings, which we order from the same supplier, under two or three different part-IDs coming from the same factory ”, says a parts manager of a Scandinavian engine manufacturer. “ Stock numbers are speaking the same language. If you of these parts were reduced by Reducing are in a multilingual environment, it is 22 %.” ?often impossible to know what is meant complexity if you do not know the context. What in business does “ spring ” mean ? Is it a season or a technical product ? Terminology for common processes understanding Enter metadata Terminology, as a type of lan- by Reinhard Pohn, Managing dictionaries guage resource, is a set of terms repre- Director of Paradine GmbH, Paradine is an Austrian soft- senting concepts of a specific knowledge domain. Increasingly, terminolo- Vienna, Austria ware and consulting company, operating internationally, which specializes gies also include non-linguistic concept What is the height of a sheet of paper in metadata dictionaries. We help com- representations, such as graphical sym- in A4 format ? ” I asked. The woman panies and organizations to streamline bols or formulae. The implementation sitting next to me at the workshop their business processes, by supplying and use of a corporate-wide, multilingual “ terminology is essential for common answered immediately : “ It’s 297 mm ”. and implementing metadata dictionaries I pointed to a sheet in front of her : “ Are for terminology, as well as for product understanding. Standards developed you sure ? ” She seemed surprised by the classification and product description. in ISO/TC 37, Terminology and other second question, but then she replied : The data models of these dictionaries are language and content resources, have “ How do you mean – height ? ” based on international standards. contributed significantly to the harmo- This was the entry question at As markets become global and nization of these methods. the beginning of a workshop at which goods are sold worldwide, suppliers we discussed product properties and source products and services from all Accuracy – A must for product classification. There are plenty around the world. In this environment, more examples where you think you are business success requires a clear and e-business clear about your meaning, but someone common understanding between the Processes, products and servic- else may not understand. buyer and seller of product or service es must be described very accurately in Sometimes, it is hard to arrive specifications. To achieve this, we have electronic business. It is not adequate to at a mutual understanding of a prod- to concentrate on metadata more than describe a product by defining a list of uct or a service, even if both parties we did in the past. properties, where the property only con-

18 ISO Focus April 2008 Focus 4-2008.indd 1

Information and document management sists of a name. In addition to the pre- sification such as eCl@ss is also imple- con within the organiza- 14.03.2008 14:30:30 ferred name of a property, a multilingual mented at this point. The metadata dic- tion. This ensures that the definition for the property must also be tionary includes such information as product description is con- provided to make meaning clear. Fur- multilingual definitions, remarks, ref- sistent throughout the entire ther information, such as data formats, erences and icons, serving as a lexi- product life cycle. units of measurement, or icons, might also be needed to avoid misinterpretation. And reference classification data such as eCl@ss is needed to assign the product to the correct structure. Specifications for the definition of product properties and classes are defined in ISO 13584-42:1998, Industrial information systems and integration – Parts library – Part 42: Description methodology: Methodology for structuring part families (PLIB). The data model may also be used for the definition of company- specific properties and classes.

A streamlined approach In the past, product data management was application-centric. This means that information was handled only when needed in the respective application system (e.g. product design). Product data management was conducted redundantly for each application. Data transfers between applications and to suppliers and customers were complex and expensive. Today, we are moving toward a Figure 1 – DIN Properties Dictionary – property attributes corporate-centric approach. Concepts of products and services are described only once in metadata dictionaries from a corporate perspective. A product clas-

About the author

Reinhard Pohn is co-founder and Managing Director of Paradine, Vienna, Austria. He has been a member of several national and international standardization committees since 1987. He studied mechanical engineering and marketing, and has 23 years of experience in the software business and mechanical engineering. He has extensive experience in the implementation of metadata dictionaries in standardization bodies, industry associations and corporations. Figure 2 – eCl@ss Service Portal – enter a change request

ISO Focus April 2008 19 Main Focus

For application systems such as computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided engineering (CAE), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM), only information required for the respective system is transferred. Valuation of the product is done directly in the application systems. Data transfer between two application systems is less complex, as both systems build on the same properties. This streamlines business processes and reduces complexity. Corporate metadata systems must be built on reliable and stable terminology, product properties and classification systems. Industry has Figure 3 – Concept Data Base – overview of graphical symbols recognized that standardization bodies are the right vehicle to deliver reli- Dictionary collections partnership agreement for development and able metadata, as they have mature operation of the ISO/CDB. Work began processes and extensive experience in In 2004, ISO/TC 172, Optics and in October 2007. The first version of the development and maintenance of meta- photonics, began creating a collection ISO/CDB is expected to be presented to data, for instance, in country codes and of commonly used product properties selected ISO technical committees dur- language codes. and terminology in the optical industry, ing the second quarter of 2008. Paradine is the leading supplier employing the commonly agreed ISO/IEC and operator of metadata dictionaries workflow for content development. The for standardization bodies and indus- next step is to select a professional data- Benefits for the industry base for online development and main- try associations. Standardized terminology, clas- tenance of content. sification and properties offer substantial Based on its experience with the benefits for industry and trading partners. DIN online dictionary, Paradine was Online properties Product liability issues can be extremely selected to develop and operate the ISO/ dictionary costly, making clearly-defined product TC 172 properties dictionary (www. specifications and common terminology As one of the first ISO member tc172-prodic.net). In addition to product necessary to avoid misinterpretation. bodies, the German Institute for Standard- properties, terminology is made available The role played by standardiza- ization (DIN) began in 2002 to build an in English, French and German. online dictionary for standardized prod- tion bodies and industry associations in uct properties. Today the DIN Properties providing this information is growing rap- Dictionary (www.DINsml.net) offers a ISO concept database idly, because a key factor for industry is Web-based platform for online develop- long-term security of investment in prod- Following a survey undertak- uct description. Reliable and stable pro- ment and maintenance of properties to en by the ISO Central Secretariat (ISO/ describe products and services. cesses for creation and change manage- CS) on the use of databases within ISO ment are highly appreciated. The DIN Properties Dictionary technical committees, the ISO Techni- was developed and is operated by Para- Payback for companies is usually cal Management Board (TMB) decided 18 months or less, and the benefits achieved dine on behalf of DIN. The properties in 2005 to set up the ISO/TMB ad hoc are based on the data format accord- are ongoing throughout the entire product group, AHG “ Standards as databases ”. lifecycle. These include : ing to the international standards ISO The aim of this group was to address 13584-42:1998 and IEC 61360-2, Stand- issues arising from the many database • consolidation in parts management, ard data element types with associated initiatives that were emerging in various including spare parts ; classification scheme for electric com- technical committees. • cost reductions in procurement ; ponents – Part 2: EXPRESS dictionary As a result of the work done by schema. Properties can be identified • increased electronic data exchange the ad hoc group, it was decided to cre- to suppliers and customers ; independent of language, and include ate a common ISO concept database (ISO/ • corporate-wide search for materials attributes such as definition, data for- CDB) which is to be available for all tech- is enabled ; mat, unit of measurement, etc. Several nical committees to develop, maintain and thousand properties have been released provide with “ concepts ”. Concepts are • reduced complexity of business pro- or are under development. defined as terminology, graphical sym- cesses and data exchange ; bols, product properties and more. ISO/ • increased turnover of stock and CS and Paradine have signed a long-term decreased fixed capital.

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Information and document management 14.03.2008 14:30:30

authors are to receive their royalties. an ISO standard in 1970, several years Identifying media A single musical composition may be before the introduction of EAN-13 (with recorded many times, and each of those whom the International ISBN Agency content recordings may appear in many differ- subsequently entered into an agreement ent CD products. A film may be dubbed to enable the ISBN to be represented as in many languages and made available an EAN13 barcode). in several “cuts”. There are now more than 170 by Brian Green, Chair of countries in the ISBN system. A separate ISO/TC 46/SC 9, Identification Whose book ? What ISO standard – ISO 3297:2007, Informa- and description tion and documentation – International edition ? Standard Serial Number: (ISSN) – was n today’s digital world, with most In short, it is no longer enough first published in 1975 to identify “con- trading managed by computers, the to simply identify products. The continuing resources” such as newspapers, Iidentification of goods by a simple tent of those products and the people journals, periodicals and databases. number – often expressed by a barcode involved in their creation also need to The ISBN identifies a particu- – is essential and pretty well taken for be identified. ISO technical commit- lar edition or format of a book, rather granted. tee ISO/TC 46, Information and docu- than its actual abstract content. How- The GS1 GTIN/EAN13 1) system mentation, Subcommittee SC 9, Iden- ever, there is also a need to identify the of identifiers and their barcode represen- tification and description, is responsi- underlying content in order to link the tations is pervasive and well understood ble for the development of ISO stand- various editions and formats of a book as an identifier of physical products. ards for the identification and descrip- (e.g. hardbound, paperback, audiobook, However, in the intellectual property tion of information resources and intel- ebook) as well as translations into dif- world of books, magazines, music and lectual content, each of which is main- ferent languages. This is important to films, it is just as important to identify tained by a registration authority des- facilitate the trading of rights and flow the actual content of the product. ignated by ISO. of royalties, as well as to help booksell- Books may be published in many ISO 2108:2005, Information and ers and libraries identify different ver- editions and translations, but they all documentation – International standard sions of the same content. need to link to the original works if book number (ISBN), identifying print- To this purpose, a new standard, ed, audio and digital electronic books, is ISO 21047, Information and documenta- 1) GTIN – Global Trade Item Number, EAN perhaps the best-known identifier in the tion – International Standard Text Code – European Article Numbering ISO/TC 46/SC 9 portfolio. ISBN became (ISTC), is about to be published.

ISO Focus April 2008 21 Main Focus

A digital licence plate Built into V-ISAN is a resolution ISO/TC 46/SC 9 now include a minimum service to enable the identifier to include set of descriptive metadata that will help to The complexity of the content links to Web pages with relevant infor- provide the key to interoperability. industry supply chain and the need mation about the audiovisual work. Such for identification is well illustrated by a system is not built into most identifiers. the music industry. The process most A new standard to “Web-enable” existing No content sector is often starts with a composition, iden- identifiers, so that they can provide per- tified using ISO 15707:2001, Informa- an island sistent links to appropriate Web pages, is tion and documentation – International In an increasingly multimedia envi- therefore being developed, namely, ISO Standard Musical Work Code (ISWC). ronment, no content sector is an island. A 26324, Information and documentation At this point there is usually no record- pop video identified with an ISRC may be – Digital Object Identifier System (DOI). included in a TV programme identified with ing, sheet music or any other physical Standard syntaxes and other techniques an ISAN, a literary work may become a manifestation of the composition other will allow existing identifiers such as the film, and a poem may become song lyrics. than the composer’s manuscript. ISBN, ISSN, ISRC and others to be incor- The next step may be publication With this in mind, the directors of each of porated within a DOI. of the composition as sheet music, to the registration authorities for ISO “ iden- which an International Standard Music tifier ” standards have formed an identifi- Number (ISMN), in accordance with ISO “ The international standard er interoperability group to explore ways 10957:1993, is assigned. In many cases recording code is assigned of improving the interoperability of iden- the work will be recorded. An Interna- tifiers and information across the differ- tional Standard Recording Code (ISRC), to the master recording, ent media sectors, and improve commu- defined by ISO 3901:2001, identifies the not the physical CD or nication between the various registration resulting sound recording. The ISRC authorities. functions as a digital “ licence plate ” for cassette.” This group is currently working on a sound recording and/or music record- Unlike the URL (Web address) sys- the relationships between the objects rep- ing, making it an extremely powerful tem used on the Internet for Web pages, resented by the various identifiers. It is also tool for royalty collection, administra- the DOI does not change if the Web page investigating what new identifiers may be tion, and anti-piracy safeguards in the is relocated. This persistence is managed required to facilitate identification and trad- digital arena. For example, it enables through the DOI resolution system where ing of media content and products. automatic tracking, for royalty purpos- changes in location need to be registered One area for which a new working es, of recordings played on radio. only once. group was recently formed is the unique Unlike a Universal Product Code All of these identifiers operate on and unambiguous identification of parties or EAN13, the ISRC is assigned to the the “licence plate” principle. The relative- such as authors, composers, performers actual master recording and not the ly meaningless string of characters that and other interested parties. The aim of physical CD or cassette carrying the comprise the identifier links to a set of the proposed international standard name recording. A single master recording descriptive data elements. These provide identifier (ISNI) is to help answer ques- may appear as a track in a number of sufficient information for the functionality tions such as, “Is this composer, John Wil- different CDs and be sold through a vari- required by users of the various systems liams, the same John Williams who com- ety of digital retailers, such as Apple’s enabled by each of the identifiers. Nearly posed another work ? ” or “Is this author, iTunes, who require that each digital all ISO identifier standards developed by Anton Chekhov, the same as that author, recording that they distribute must have Anton Tchekoff?” an ISRC code. Libraries have been working on this About the author problem for many decades and have developed authority files to try to solve the prob- Tracking video Brian Green is lem. For authors, composers, performers A similar system of identifiers Chair of ISO/ and the collecting societies acting on their has been developed for the film and TC 46/SC 9, the behalf, the issue is even more critical, and video industry to identify motion pic- ISO committee a number of proprietary identifier schemes responsible for tures, trailers, video games, television have sprung up in the different sectors. The identifiers in the productions and other products. Here ISNI will attempt to make these systems information an International Standard Audiovisual interoperable whilst ensuring privacy and community, and Number (ISAN), ISO 15706:2002, iden- BSI IDT/2, the protection of personal data. tifies the work. ISAN version identifiers BSI committee In short, ISO standard identifiers (V-ISAN), ISO 15706-2:2007, Informa- that mirrors developed by ISO/TC 46/SC 9 are en- tion and documentation – International ISO/TC 46. He is Executive Director of abling the information and content indus- Standard Audiovisual Number (ISAN) – the International ISBN Agency and of tries to take full advantage of current dig- Part 2: Version identifier, identify each EDItEUR, the international organization ital technology, and to function effectively version (dubbed language version, direc- developing e-commerce-related standards and efficiently in a networked multimedia tor’s cut, etc.). for the book and serials industry. environment.

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Coding the world

by Gérard Lang, Convenor languages, countries and authorities (such A third coding scheme as ISO national member bodies). of ISO/TC 46/WG 2, Coding of The second edition of ISO 3166, However, the first edition of the published in 1981, evolved to include a country names and related standard that would become synonymous third coding scheme – a digital numer- entities with ISO country codes – ISO 3166, Codes for the representation of names of coun- ic-3 code element for each entry. It was SO 3166-1 country codes have become tries – was produced in 1974. Developed provided by the United Nations Statis- tics Division and known under the name part of daily life. Widely applied in by ISO/TC 46, Information and documen- Standard Country or Area Codes for Imany sectors, the codes facilitate tation, ISO 3166:1974 was principally Statistical Use (M49). A link was also international exchanges in postal, bank- based on countries’ designations reported established with the United Nations Ter- ing and transport services, to name just under the 1949 and 1968 Conventions on minology Bulletin that gives the official a few. The codes form part of the Inter- Road Traffic, and on codes allocated by long and short form of the name of eve- net domain name system, so are reg- the World Intellectual Property Organiza- ry member state in the six official lan- ularly used by anyone accessing Web tion (WIPO) for specific purposes. 1). sites or addressing e-mails. Holders of The standard provided two coding guages of the United Nations a machine-readable passport will find schemes for each ISO 3166 entry, one that the nationality of the user is deter- scheme giving upper-case Latin alpha-2 mined by a three-letter code from ISO code elements (e.g. FR for France) and Widening the scope 3166-1, Codes for the representation of the other giving upper-case Latin alpha-3 The next major change to the the names of countries and their subdi- code elements (e.g. FRA for France). standard came over a decade later, when visions – Part 1 : Country codes. In short, From the beginning, the need for ISO/TC 46/WG 2, Coding of country the use of these internationally-recog- universally-applicable codes was evident. names and related entities, divided ISO nized country codes simplifies trans- Therefore, the basic principle employed 3166 into three parts : actions and makes our lives easier. in developing the ISO 3166 alphabetic codes was a visual association between • ISO 3166-1:1997, Codes for the representation of the names of countries ISO country codes are the codes and the country (or “entity”) names. This association needed to be in and their subdivisions – Part 1: Coun- born both English and French, as well as in the try codes The first ISO publication to con- national language(s) of the entity. Added • ISO 3166-2:1998, Codes for the rep- tain country codes goes back to Novem- to that, ISO 3166 entries comprise both resentation of the names of countries ber 1967, when ISO technical commit- independent country names and names and their subdivisions – Part 2: Coun- tee ISO/TC 37, Terminology (Principles of other areas of particular geopolitical try subdivision code and Coordination) – now called Termi- interest that are (like Greenland, Marti- nology and other language and content nique or Puerto Rico), or are not (like resources – developed ISO/R 639, a Antarctica or Western Sahara), consid- 1) Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian recommendation giving symbols for ered as dependent. and Spanish

ISO Focus April 2008 23 Real life examples Main Focus The three codes contained in ISO 3166-1 are extensively used by international information systems, both inside and outside standardization. • The alpha-2 code is used by the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and • ISO 3166-3:1999, Codes for the representation of the names of countries Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) inside the UN Code for Trade and Transport and their subdivisions – Part 3: Code Location (UN/LOCODE). The 2006 version of UN/LOCODE gives an upper- for the representation of names of his- case Latin alpha-5 code element, beginning with the alpha-2 ISO 3166-1 code torical countries (containing coun- element, to more than 54 000 locations in 243 countries. try names no longer included in the • The alpha-2 code is used by a number of ISO standards, among which ISO main country code listing). 4217:2001, Codes for the representation of currencies and funds (e.g. GBP codes the British Pound, CHF codes the Swiss Franc), ISO 6166:2001, Securities and related financial instruments – International securities Associated language identification numbering system (ISIN), ISO 10383:2003, Securities and codes related financial instruments – Codes for exchanges and market identification The current edition of ISO 3166-1, (MIC), ISO 13616-1:2007, Financial services – International bank account published in 2006, contains 244 entries. number (IBAN) – Part 1 : Structure of the IBAN, or ISO 6346:1995, Freight Of these, 193 are independent countries containers – Coding, identification and marking. (defined as the 192 United Nations mem- • The European Union uses the alpha-2 code, as for example inside Regulation ber states and the Holy See, or Vatican) and N° 1833/2006 of the Commission on the nomenclature of countries and 51 territories with particular geopolitical interest.2) ISO 3166-1:2006 gives inform- territories for the external trade statistics of the Community and statistics of ative indication of the written form of the trade between member States. • The alpha-2 code is used by ICANN inside the Domain Name System (DNS) of 2) Since its publication, two more territories the internet to form the ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domains) so that, for have been introduced. example, DE gives “.de ” and CH gives “.ch ” (“.uk” against GB being an historic exception). “ Use of internationally- • International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) uses an upper case Latin recognized country codes alpha-3 code for the designation of nationality, place of birth or issuing state/ authority that is a slight extension of the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code and is used makes our lives easier.” in every international airport.

name of each country in its administrative “ From the beginning, About the author language(s), i.e. the written language(s) used at national level by the administration the need for universally- Gérard Lang is of the country (South Africa, for example, Convenor of applicable codes was ISO/TC 46/WG 2, has 11 administrative languages). evident.” liaison officer This new indication is associated from ISO/TC 46 with the corresponding lower-case Latin to ISO/TC 37 alpha-2 and alpha-3 code elements given nance agency takes care of the contin- and Chairman in Parts 1 and 2 of ISO 639, Codes for the uous updates, announcements and other of ISO 3166/MA. representation of the names of languages. maintenance tasks which the code list He graduated ISO 639 and ISO 3166 have been har- may need between formal revisions of from ENSAE monized since their independent evolu- the standard. The ISO 3166 maintenance (French national tion from ISO/R 639:1967. This indica- agency, or ISO 3166/MA, has 10 mem- school for statistics and economic tion helps to understand why DE is the bers: five ISO national member bodies administration) in 1971 and has been alpha-2 code element representing Deut- – AFNOR (France), ANSI (USA), BSI working for INSEE (French National schland (rather than Allemagne or Ger- (United Kingdom), DIN (Germany), SIS Institute for Statistics and Economic many) and why KM is the alpha-2 code (Sweden), and five international organ- Studies) since then. He was initially element representing Cambodge/Cambo- izations – IAEA (International Atom- (and likes to think he still is !) a logician dia. ISO 3166-1:2006 contains 106 such ic Energy Agency), ICANN (Internet and mathematician, interested in limits of administrative language names. Corporation for Assigned Names and formal systems. He became progressive- Numbers), ITU (International Telecom- ly a lawyer (and historian) for the munication Union), UN/ECE (UN Eco- French national statistical system. Keeping up with a nomic Commission for Europe), UPU He has been the French member of changing world (Universal Postal Union). The secretariat the European committee for statistical of the ISO 3166/MA is held by the ISO confidentiality, and is currently Vice- While ISO/TC 46/WG 2 is president of the French National responsible for revisions of all parts Central Secretariat. Toponymy Commission. of the ISO 3166 standard, a mainte-

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those who might never con-

Explore even further 14.03.2008 14:30:30 sciously consider how infor- The already widespread use of ISO mation is stored. country codes is growing even further, especially in this age of computers and • The Bush White House says it lost international communication. As a result, several years’ worth of electronic com- these codes are progressively becoming munication, including e-mails docu- ubiquitous in our daily lives. menting administration actions imme- Their use will promote harmoni- diately before and after the invasion zation around the globe. The Web site of Iraq. The missing records have led of the ISO 3166 maintenance agency to charges of obstruction of justice, as (http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes. Congressional investigators attempt htm) gives more implementation exam- to reconstruct official actions during ples and historical background, as well the unseemly search for evidence of as answers to frequently-asked questions. weapons of mass destruction. Also to be found there is the constantly updated list of ISO 3166 alpha-2 coun- • In 2007, two CDs were lost by Her try codes and newsletters on the latest Majesty’s Customs and Revenue internationally-agreed changes. Department containing the bank details, addresses and phone numbers of every UK family receiving child benefits. The potential cost to the banking sector and UK government of this loss has been estimated Related reading at more than £ 244 million. Some interesting historical and • In the fascinating film Das Leben geographical normative documents der Anderen (The lives of others), are linked to ISO 3166. the action centres on records maintained by the Stasi secret police in the Historical countries former East German government. To complement ISO 3166-3, which • Almost every detective show on televi- gives the history of country names sion, and particularly those involving back to 1974, AFNOR has published forensics, shows records and records a French experimental standard, processes in action. AFNOR XP Z 44-002, Code pour • The recent movie National Treasure : la représentation des noms de Book of Secrets features a (somewhat pays historiques, 1997, providing improbable) plot predicated on the an upper case Latin alpha-5 code contents of missing pages of the dia- representing the history of country Records – ry of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin names going back from 1974 to of US President Abraham Lincoln. 1815 (Congress of Vienna). AFNOR Essential business is continuing the work to go back even further, to the year 1000. enablers Heroes for accountability While the popular image of records Oceans and seas might focus on the perceived burden of by Hans Hofman, Convenor unnecessary bureaucracy, the transition AFNOR XP Z 44-020, Code pour from paper to electronic recordkeeping la représentation des noms des of ISO/TC 46/SC 11/WG 1, over the last 20 years shows that main- océans et des mers, 2006, is a Metadata, and Barbara Reed, taining authoritative traces of events and French experimental standard based Convenor of ISO/TC 46/SC 11/ decisions is highly significant for soci- on the 1953 Special Publication WG 3, Access frameworks ety, business, government and individ- No. 23, Limits of Oceans and Seas, uals alike. Records are needed to prove published by the International he topic of recordkeeping and archiv- actions, protect individuals and organi- Hydrographic Organization (IHO). ing probably strikes most people zations, and demonstrate accountabili- It provides for the division of the Tas dry as dust. But a few recent ty and probity. maritime part of the earth and examples pulled from popular culture Where companies do not volun- constitutes a natural geographical and newspaper headlines serve to illus- tarily comply with good records practice complement to ISO 3166. trate the importance of records even for as an integral part of efficient business ISO Focus April 2008 25 Main Focus management, governments have shown The international communi- ISO 15489 has been translated into that they will step in and impose require- ty of standards developers has active- more than 10 languages by national stand- ments and regulations. ly addressed this area with the devel- ards bodies, and it is used by organiza- A recent example is the American opment of the two-part standard ISO tions around the world. The development Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in 2002 in 15489, Information and documentation community for ISO technical commit- the wake of accounting scandals involv- – Records management, published in tee ISO/TC 46/SC 11, Archives/records ing the energy trading company Enron, 2001. This standard codifies organiza- management, includes active participa- the telecoms giant WorldCom and oth- tional issues, policies, responsibilities tion by more than 120 individuals rep- ers. These cost investors billions of dol- and systems that need to be in place to resenting some 26 countries, with a fur- lars and shook public confidence in the safeguard evidence of actions. ther 12 countries registered as observers nation’s securities markets. Actions can take place in any to the committee. A further example is the records media and format – electronic, audio, requirements incorporated into the instant message, Web transaction. Record- Revised International Capital Frame- keeping requirements depend on the risks, The challenge of work (Basel II) which establishes a sol- types of business and external compli- complexity id accountability framework designed to ance obligations faced by organizations. Organizations use an increasing- mitigate unrest and loss of trust in finan- A primary mission of the international ly complex array of business systems to cial institutions. standards development community in deliver their services. This challenges the records management is to provide guid- records community to devise ways of inte- Essential for business ance on how to make such decisions, and grating, into ever-changing technologies, how to implement systems that protect societal and business needs for reliable As individuals, employees, clients against rogue operators and unauthor- evidence of transactions. To tackle this and citizens, each of us is the subject of ized transactions, as an integrated com- issue, the international records commu- a steady stream of new information. We ponent of doing business. nity has developed metadata standards to expect this to be reliable, accurate and ISO 15489 codifies a set of organ- provide the conceptual data models for protected from unauthorized access. In izational practices and professional con- records and their management. an increasingly digital world, this level cerns for the first time. It sets a benchmark ISO 23081 provides generic guid- of trust is not to be taken for granted. It against which organizations can assess ance that will apply in any implemen- must be actively designed into organi- their compliance and which may guide tation environment. The standard is in zational systems and not be treated as technology in designing systems to sup- two parts : administrative overhead, added as an port efficient records management. While afterthought. Managing records is a core it is a voluntary and best practice stand- • ISO 23081-1:2006, Information and component of efficient business. ard, its impact has been significant. documentation – Records management processes – Metadata for records – Part 1: Principles • ISO 23081-2:2006, Information and About the authors documentation – Records management Barbara Reed Hans Hofman processes – Metadata for records – is Director and is Senior advisor Part 2: Conceptual and implementa- principal con- on digital tion issues sultant in longevity at the Part one is a principles-based stand- Recordkeeping Nationaal ard relating the metadata requirements for Innovation Pty Archief of the digital records to the more generic ISO Ltd, an Austral- Netherlands. 15489. Part two addresses implementation ian recordkeep- Since 2000, he issues and provides generic data models ing consultancy has represented to guide implementation of the require- practice. the Netherlands ments in diverse environments. She has been in ISO TC46/ involved in the Australian standards SC11, chairing the working group on The key requirement of ISO process since 1991, helping to develop records management metadata. 23081 is defining the metadata needed to the Australian records management He also represents the Nationaal assert that an electronic object has been standard. As the head of the Australian Archief in projects such as PLANETS managed as a record over all the events delegation to ISO/TC46/SC11, she has (www.planets-project.eu) and that may take place during its physical been deeply involved with the development Digital Preservation Europe existence. This means that the digital of ISO 15489 and the metadata standards. (www.digitalpreservationeurope.eu). object can be interpreted in the context Previously an academic at Monash He has acted as co-director of ERPANET of the business and that the character- University, she has written extensively (2001-2004, www.erpanet.org) and was istics of integrity, authenticity, reliabil- on recordkeeping and archiving. co-investigator in the InterPares project ity and usability are maintained for all from 1999 to 2006. digital records.

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ISO 23081 is a cornerstone doc- 14.03.2008 14:30:30 ument for designing technical specifications for records that will be applied in specific technological applications. It can be used to support assertions of authenticity and reliability at a given point in time and in all business and records environments. The specifications for metadata relating to records contained in ISO 15489 and ISO 23081 are focused firmly on the future. The intent is to enable innovation in the way the market designs business solutions for managing records, allowing organizations to develop the records solutions that suit their specific requirements, and implement them using innovative technical solutions.

Addressing real world issues Technology alone will never provide all the answers to effective and efficient management of records. Organiza- tional policy and behaviour must be har- knowledge about existing methods and nessed to work with technology to cre- practices and to standardize terminolo- ate characteristics of reliability, trust- gy, definitions and data collection with worthiness and accuracy for electron- a view to comparing and aggregating ic records destined to provide evidence results at a regional, national or even of actions. Quantifying international level. Far from being a boring subject Created in 1985, ISO/TC 46/SC or an untoward burden on business, the quality – 8 has a steadily growing membership world of standards for records is dynamic, – 23 P-members (participating) and 15 future-oriented and concerned with the Information O-members (observer) in 2008 – and, real-world issues facing organizations. at present, six working groups, most of Compliance is only the tip of the ice- providers which concentrate on the library sector. berg – managing records is about doing Its secretariat has been held by DIN, business more efficiently and effective- measure up the German Institute for Standardiza- ly, and thus enabling it to be as automat- tion, since 2005. ed as possible. Good records management affects by Roswitha Poll, Chair of ISO/ Asking the right all of us as individuals involved in busi- TC 46/SC 8, Quality – Statistics ness transactions. It affects organizations questions and performance evaluation responsible for managing their business When it comes to statistics on in the best possible manner, and it affects uality is a major preoccupation the provision of information, primary our societies in the longer term as the con- of most service organizations, questions include : What information is sequences of actions become matters of and information providers are no available ? What types of media exist ? accountability and responsibility. Q exception. Within ISO/TC 46, Informa- How many of these are published annu- ISO 15489 on records manage- tion and documentation, subcommittee ally in a country ? What is the price index ment, and ISO 23081 on metadata for SC 8 deals with the qualitative evalua- for these media, if they are acquired by records, create a common language and tion of information and content provid- libraries and thus made available to the practice for managing records in all ers such as libraries, archives, museums, public ? formats, with a special eye towards the and publishers. To help compile and manage such challenges of managing digital records, The subcommittee focuses on statistics, ISO 9707:1991, Information with all their required characteristics, practical quality assessment in the form and documentation – Statistics on the into the future. of statistics and performance measures. production and distribution of books, Its aim is through its work to spread newspapers, periodicals and electronic

ISO Focus April 2008 27 Main Focus publications 1), and ISO 9230:2007, Infor- or enlarged library buildings, especial- Balanced scorecard mation and documentation – Determina- ly for calculating the space necessary to Performance indicators in ISO tion of price indexes for print and elec- house the library’s collections and pro- 11620 measure “ the effectiveness of the tronic media purchased by libraries, vide user workplaces. provision of services by the library and between them give guidance for count- This new work item may take the the efficiency of the allocation and use ing media production and media prices form of a technical report, in view of of resources in providing services ”. The on a national scale and for international the fact that the requirements for library indicators are grouped in the structure comparison. buildings change so rapidly as a result of the “ balanced scorecard ”, adapted for of continually evolving library services libraries, along the following lines : Keeping up with and user behaviour. developments • Resources and infrastructure : Which Library performance infrastructure does the library offer The most widely used standard to its users ? The indicators measure developed by ISO/TC 46/SC 8 is undoubt- indicators whether the library offers adequate edly ISO 2789:2006, Information and doc- Quality or performance indicators resources to its clientele, e.g. titles umentation – International library statis- had already been used for some decades in the collection or seats for work- tics. Regularly revised to keep pace with in libraries, when, in 1994, a new ISO/TC ing and studying. rapid developments in the information soci- 46/SC 8 working group, WG 4, Perform- Usage : How are the offered servic- ety, it is currently in its fourth edition. ISO ance indicators for libraries, undertook • es used ? This aspect measures the 2789:2006 defines data for the input and standardization of the indicators and meth- amount of usage (e.g. loans, library output of libraries in terms of collection ods. Its first standard, ISO 11620:1998, visits, or downloads from the elec- size, number and types of users, usage of Information and documentation – Library tronic collection) per member of the services, finances, staff, and space. performance indicators, focused on tradi- population, as well as the users’ sat- Many of the changes in the lat- tional library services. However, a techni- isfaction with the services. est version of the standard relate to the cal report was subsequently added that for electronic and Web-based resources and the first time collected methods for eval- • Efficiency : Are the services offered services that are becoming more and more uating the new electronic services, ISO/ cost-effective ? The “ efficiency ” per- integrated into the functioning of today’s TR 20983:2003, Information and docu- spective includes both indicators libraries. In addition to electronic collec- mentation – Performance indicators for measuring cost-effectiveness and indi- tions, such services include a library’s electronic library services. cators for the quality of processes. Web site, electronic document delivery, Library costs are set in relation to the online reference services and Internet number of visits or loans. The quality access offered via the library. “ It is vital for the of processes is assessed by measur- Special emphasis is put on count- management of information ing the speed and correctness of the ing the usage of electronic library col- services, e.g. the speed of acquiring lections, such as electronic journals, services that publishers, and cataloguing new documents. e-books, and databases. Such usage is suppliers and libraries use counted as sessions (for a database) or the same definitions and • Development and potential : Is there downloads (of content units). sufficient potential for the necessary Use of ISO 2789 is spread globally. counting procedures.” development of the library? This In most countries, national library statis- perspective is especially important tics are more or less based on this stand- For the revision of ISO 11620, it in times of constant change, as it ard. For effective management of infor- was decided to merge both publications assesses the library’s ability to cope mation services, it is vital that publish- and attempt to find indicators that cover with such change. The potential for ers, suppliers and libraries use the same the quality of a service, whether deliv- development is measured, on the one definitions and counting procedures in ered in traditional or in electronic form. hand, against the library’s investment order to make the data comparable not The new revision, currently a final draft in electronic services (expenditure on only over years but also between institu- international standard (FDIS), describes the electronic collection, percentage tions and countries. 44 performance indicators. of staff involved in electronic servic- A new project within ISO/TC 46/ Quality of libraries can be es) and, on the other hand, against the SC 8 concerns data for the structure of expressed by the following attributes : library’s success in obtaining funding library buildings. Libraries, as well as from internal and external sources, architects, need help when planning new • reliability, usability, currency and or by income generation. The most speed of the services ; relevant indicator for potential and 1) A new edition, ISO 9707:2008, • adequacy and relevance of the serv- development is the library’s invest- Information and documentation – Statistics ices to the library’s population ; ment in staff training. on the production and distribution of books, newspapers, periodicals and electronic • competence and responsiveness of Although performance meas- publications, is to be published shortly. staff. urement was first applied in individual

28 ISO Focus April 2008 Focus 4-2008.indd 1

Information and document management libraries, lists of performance indicators In 2006, three partners joined

14.03.2008 14:30:30 From output to are today also being used by groups of in a new approach towards worldwide outcome libraries on a regional or even national library statistics and measures, namely : scale, often for benchmarking purposes. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Inter- With the addition of For all such projects, standardization of national Federation of Library Asso- non-library socio-economic data from methods is indispensable. ciations and Institutions (IFLA), and UNESCO, the global statistics might ISO/TC 46/SC 8. also be used to demonstrate the impact The new set of core data is intend- of libraries on education and literacy. Special needs of national ed to cover traditional as well as new libraries library tasks. Electronic services constitute the most important ISO 11620 aims to supply perform- new task, but there are oth- ance indicators for all libraries, whatever er issues, such as the engage- the type. Even so, it is recognized that ment of libraries in teaching national libraries have important tasks information literacy, or that differ from those of other libraries. the cultural involvement The collection and preservation of the of libraries in organizing national documentary heritage, the pub- exhibitions and other cul- lication of a national bibliography and tural events. The new global a leading role in international coopera- dataset is based on ISO 2789 tion, are just a few examples. and was developed within ISO/ To address the special needs of TC 46/SC 8. national libraries, a new ISO/TC 46/SC Some difficulty was expe- 8 working group, WG 7, Quality meas- rienced in deciding on statistics ures for national libraries, was created that would be meaningful in dem- in 2006. The working group has begun onstrating the current role of librar- development of a technical report: ISO/ ies, while remaining easy to col- TR 28118, Information and documenta- lect. Issues faced by developing coun- tion – Performance indicators for nation- tries received special consideration in In the competition for scarce al libraries. this process. The data were chosen with resources, it is becoming vital for librar- a view to their usefulness as perform- ies to show evidence of the impact and The global perspective ance indicators, especially if combined value of their services, preferably in with demographic data, e.g. “ loans in quantified results. Examples of the out- For some time, UNESCO col- public libraries per 1 000 members of come of library use could be : lected statistics for different types of the national population ”. libraries in all countries. Because the • knowledge ; old dataset was found wanting in repre- • information literacy ; senting recent developments in librar- “ In most countries, ies, this data collection stopped around • higher academic or professional the year 2000. national library statistics success ; are more or less based on • social inclusion (e.g. of elderly ISO 2789.” people or immigrants) ; About the author • individual well-being. The set was tested in Latin Amer- Dr. Roswitha ican countries and – with a few chang- Poll has chaired es – proved reliable. The results will be “ Issues faced by developing ISO/TC 46/SC shown at a conference 2) in Montreal, 8 since 2003, countries received special and she is also Canada, in August 2008, and will hope- consideration.” Chair of the fully lead to a new overview of library German mirror services worldwide. committee. For several years, projects around From 1987 to the world have aimed to develop methods 2004, she was for assessing the impact and outcome of chief librarian library services. As soon as these meth- of Münster University Library, and is 2) Library statistics for the 21st century ods have been proved reliable and val- currently working on projects of man- world, IFLA satellite meeting, 18 and id, “ outcome measures ” will be a new agement and evaluation in information 19 August 2008, Montreal, Canada topic for standardization within ISO/ services. (www.ville.montreal.qc.ca/ifla). TC 46/SC 8.

ISO Focus April 2008 29 Main Focus

View of a work of art evoking waves, displayed in the Bibliothèque de la Cité, Geneva, Switzerland.

The Geneva project ments and the borrower’s card are placed Geneva’s started in June on an RFID reader and, in one single oper- 2007 and should be ation of a few seconds, the documents are municipal libraries completed by the electronically linked to the borrower and adopt RFID end of the first half their anti-theft system is deactivated. of 2008. Explains “The benefits of this new RFID and use Kieran Pavel, the system are the simultaneous loans in scientific assistant one action with the borrower’s card, the ISO/IEC 15693 within the infor- automatic tracking of multi-piece mate- mation systems department of Gene- rial, such as books and CDs, the integra- for tracking books va’s municipal libraries in charge of the tion of anti-theft systems through secu- RFID project : “ We are the first library rity gates and the identification of stolen network with which Solid and Tagsys documents”, adds Kieran Pavel. by Sandrine Tranchard, collaborate. Furthermore, we are install- “During the second phase, which Communication Officer, ing a ‘full RFID’ solution, including a will start towards the end of 2008, we loan and anti-theft system. will start exploring new avenues, such ISO Central Secretariat “ The software, which will cen- as autonomous loan stations, invento- n order to provide quality services to tralize the operation and management ry analysis, sorting and management of their users, the municipal libraries of of anti-theft gates, is a product entirely collections, etc. Geneva, Switzerland, have changed developed by Solid. Prior to RFID, we used “At the end of the project, we will I the ‘ Alsi readers ’, which relied on tags have deployed and/or tested the stand- their electronic document loan management system, with the help of two compa- with magnetizable metallic chips.” ard benefits which RFID can bring to nies, Tagsys RFID (USA) and Solid Solu- the library profession. We will then be tion en Identification (Swiss), which have able to envisage exploring more sophis- developed a smart-tag technology based Easy to use ticated aspects of RFID, such as smart on the three-part ISO/IEC 15693 stand- A RFID chip with a unique iden- shelves, user orientation, etc.” ard (see Box, page 32). tification number will be embedded in Radio Frequency Identification each relevant item (books, CDs, DVDs, (RFID) enables detection, over a short dis- etc.) and each borrower’s card of all Multiple benefits tance, of a chip embedded in an item. The Geneva’s municipal libraries. The integration of the RFID data stored on the chip can then be read or For these libraries, the feature is technology into the new borrower new data can be programmed into it. easy to use. At the loan service, the docu- cards coupled with the loan manage-

30 ISO Focus April 2008 Focus 4-2008.indd 1

Information and document management ment software will, in particular, ena- The network, 14.03.2008 14:30:30 ble libraries to: comprising seven libraries, makes • rapidly check documents in and out 1,6 million loans Yves Alimi, • lend several books with one motion per year, handles CEO of Solid, the 7 600 new registra- company which • computerize discotheque loans tions each year and sold and installed receives 500 000 • computerize “Bibliothèque des sports” the system : “ Each loans annual visits. project phase is The deployment of this contact- carried out in close cooperation with our • have faster and easier-to-use equip- less card technology within municipal client and in close collaboration with the ment libraries will allow them to track and manufacturers. The e-connectware soft- protect hundreds of thousands of books, ware that we have installed allows librar- make emergency loans in the event • CDs and other documents. ies, in real time, to know what book has of a computer system failure “ Tagsys is a designer and manu- been loaned whether an item has been • detect and identify stolen documents facturer of RFID systems, and a world stolen, how many visitors the library has with the help of anti-theft gates. leader in RFID systems specially designed received, what DVD is available, etc. This for the identification and management of product is an ISO/IEC 15693-compliant The system offered by Solid and paper collections and CDs, and we have open-standard solution. It gives securi- Tagsys RFID met the demand of munic- designed and supplied all the RFID equip- ty to our customers and enables them to ipal libraries for an inventory and document installed in Geneva’s municipal understand that we are offering an open ment loan management system. libraries ”, says Pierre Matignon, Head of product, so that they do not feel tied to the European library division at Tagsys. one manufacturer, as could be the case with a closed system.”

Loan counter with RFID equipment in the Pâquis district’s library.

Enhancing customer About the author satisfaction The RFID solution is used in Sandrine libraries mainly to automate the book Security gate. Tranchard, handling process – from check-out to Communication check-in operations and throughout stock Officer, management. It also speeds up the sort- ISO Central ing of books. Automating this process “In one single operation Secretariat. enables librarians to devote more time of a few seconds, to customer service, and also enhances the documents are customer satisfaction in the context of improvements in the quality of servic- electronically linked to the es provided. borrower.” ISO Focus April 2008 31 Standards referenced Main Focus in this article :

Pierre Matignon adds : “ There • ISO/IEC 15693-1:2000, An ISIL can identify an organi- are several ISO standards that enable Identification cards – Contactless zation, i.e. a library or a related organ- the use of radio frequencies to be reg- integrated circuit(s) cards – ization, or one of its subordinate units, ulated and determined according to the Vicinity cards – Part 1: Physical which is responsible for an action or serv- various applications and regions of the characteristics ice in a bibliographic environment (e.g. world, thus guaranteeing the interoper- creation of machine-readable informa- ability of existing RFID solutions. • ISO/IEC 15693-2:2006, tion). Or it can be used to identify the Standards allow a microchip and a Identification cards – Contactless originator or holder of a resource (e.g. reader to communicate together at a giv- integrated circuit(s) cards – library material). en frequency. “ For instance, an access Vicinity cards – Part 2: Air The ISIL is intended for use by badge will need to be compatible with interface and initialization libraries and agencies doing business with ISO/IEC 14443 (see Box), since it is a libraries, such as suppliers and publish- • ISO/IEC 15693-3:2001, personal access control application. A ers. An ISIL identifies an organization Identification cards – Contactless RFID 13,56 MHz high frequency tag, or one of its subordinate units, through- integrated circuit(s) cards used to identify an item, will need to be out its life. compatible with ISO/IEC 15693. – Vicinity cards – Part 3: “ The implementation of ISO Anticollision and transmission standards also means that companies can protocol choose to buy their RFID tags and RFID • ISO 15511:2003, Information and readers from the suppliers of their choice. documentation – International They are not tied to a single supplier as Standard Identifier for Libraries with a proprietary solution.” and Related Organizations (ISIL) • ISO/IEC 14443 (multi-part Unique identification series), Identification cards – of libraries Contactless integrated circuit Other standards are also used by cards – Proximity cards Geneva’s municipal libraries, such as ISO • ISO/IEC 18000, (multi-part 15511:2003, Information and documen- series) Information technology – tation – International Standard Identifier Radio frequency identification for for Libraries and Related Organizations item management (ISIL). The purpose of this international standard is to define and promote the • ISO 9001:2000, Quality use of a set of standard identifiers for the management systems – unique identification of libraries and relat- Requirements. ed organizations with a minimum impact on already existing systems. RFID tag.

Continual improvement Solid and Tagsys also use other standards for their activities, such as ISO/IEC 14443 and ISO/IEC 18000 (see Box). Pierre Matignon explains : “ These standards assure us of the quality of the product in development, and of its conformity with the requirements of the respective standards. Since 2005, TAGSYS is also ISO 9001:2000 certi- fied in France for its design, production and distribution activities. “ This certification has led to enhanced customer satisfaction by allowing us to focus more on their expectations. Continual improvement in our processes enables us to obtain the results planned Shelves of a section dedicated to youth collections in the Bibliothèque de la Cité. for each segment.”

32 ISO Focus April 2008 Focus 4-2008.indd 1

Information and document management 14.03.2008 14:30:30

Shelves with archive boxes – National Archives of Sweden (photo by Hans Rydberg)

adequately protect their contents. In The choice and level of require- Archival boxes Sweden alone, the National Archives ments in the standard are such that (Riksarkivet) keeps some 200 000 shelf they make it possible to obtain docu- for long-term metres of paper records in boxes or sim- ment enclosures adequate for their pur- document storage ilar enclosures of unsatisfactory quality. poses at reasonable prices. The extent Calculating an average of 14 boxes per and simplicity of tests to be performed shelf metre, this adds up to more than by testing laboratories have also been two and a half million boxes, and each taken into consideration. The quality by Jiri Jan Kolar, Convenor, and box may contain 10 or more file cov- of the products should be guaranteed Jörgen Wyke, Editor, ISO/TC 46/ ers, all in need of replacement. without unnecessarily expensive test WG 5, Archive boxes procedures. Aiming for cost-effective ven in today’s virtual age, domi- nated by the use of computers and quality “ ISO 16245 represents Ethe Internet, the need for reliable ISO is currently working on a the remaining piece of the long-lasting document enclosures is enor- new standard, ISO 16245, Information mous. Paper and parchment documents and documentation – Boxes, file covers standards puzzle for the in archives and libraries are important and other enclosures, made from cel- production and storage of elements of the world’s cultural herit- lulosic materials, for storage of paper paper documents.” age. Every year, around the globe, vast and parchment documents. Its aim is amounts of paper records are generated, to describe the features necessary for and these need to be kept in archives. document enclosures so that they meet Experience with the Swedish By placing these records in high-quali- permanence and durability require- standard has been very positive, and ty protective enclosures, they are made ments. The standard is also intended both users and suppliers have accept- safe for the future. to act as a technical specification, use- ed the specifications. The standard has Furthermore, countless paper doc- ful for librarians and archivists who do led to a change in the materials used uments that are already kept in archives not normally possess sufficient com- for boxes and an introduction of new need to be better managed, as they are petence to specify the product require- file covers. often stored in enclosures that do not ments to suppliers.

ISO Focus April 2008 33 Voting ends June Main Focus 2008

Completing the puzzle A Swedish working group was All the above were developed by formed, in 1995, under the ISO/TC 46, with the exception of the two ISO 16245 represents the remain- mirror committee to ISO/TC 46, paper standards, which were prepared by ing piece of the standards puzzle for the Information and documentation, ISO/TC 6, Paper, board and pulps. production and storage of paper docu- with experts from the National Several of these standards were ments. developed on the initiative and under Standards already exist for : Archives, a testing laboratory, box producers and suppliers. the management of SIS and the Swed- • permanent paper (ISO 9706:1994, The group’s aim was to develop ish National Archives. Information and documentation – a national standard for archive Paper for documents – Requirements boxes and file covers. This Swedish Long-lasting boxes for permanence) national standard was first The requirements set out in ISO archival paper (ISO 11108:1996, Infor- published in 1998, and a revised • 16245 are based on both scientific stud- mation and documentation – Archi- second edition, which benefited ies and extensive practical experience. val paper – Requirements for perma- from the experience of the Boxes and file covers made of cellu- nence and durability) international working group, came losic materials are the most commonly out in 2004. • permanence and durability of writ- used enclosures for long-term storage ing, printing and copying on paper The subject was deemed so of paper and parchment documents. The (ISO 11798:1999, Information and important that, in 1997, Swedish basic concept is to keep the documents documentation – Permanence and Standards Institute (SIS), the ISO in file covers, which are in turn placed durability of writing, printing and member for Sweden, proposed the in archive boxes. copying on paper – Requirements and national standard as a new work Paper and board are effective- test methods) item in ISO’s technical programme. ly the same material. The distinction is ISO 16245, Information and made on grammage, or weight per square binding of books (ISO 14416:2003, • documentation – Boxes, file covers metre. Consequently, the same demands Information and documentation – and other enclosures, made from for permanence can be applied to both Requirements for binding of books, paper and board. periodicals, serials and other paper cellulosic materials, for storage of documents for archive and library use paper and parchment documents, – Methods and materials) has just reached the enquiry “ Implementation of stage and the draft international • document storage requirements standard (DIS) voting period ends the future standard (ISO 11799:2003, Information and in June 2008. (ISO 16245) should not documentation – Document storage requirements for archive and library result in any price materials). increases in material.”

The materials used for file covers are in direct contact with the actual documents and must protect, without chemically affecting, the documents within. This effectively means that storage paper must meet the same requirements as permanent paper for documents (ISO 9706). The materials need to be lignin free, alkaline (pH over 7,5) and contain an alkali reserve. This normally means an addition of calcium car- bonate, or chalk. The paper used should also be strong, and, as far as possible, should be free of any optical brighten- ers, dyes, pigments and other additives.

After 40 years’ storage in a lignin-containing and light acid box, one can observe differences in yellowing of papers in direct contact with box (left) and without direct contact (right). (photo by Hans Rydberg)

34 ISO Focus April 2008 Focus 4-2008.indd 1

Information and document management

If coloured, the paper should be bright the world. Considering the 14.03.2008 14:30:30 enough to allow easy reading, copying, great importance of this draft microfilming or scanning. international standard for the The most important purposes of archives and libraries of the an archive box are to protect the con- world, it is the hope of the authors of this tents mechanically during storing and article that the work on the standard will handling, and to reduce environmental be successfully completed, that it will be risks. Although boxes may be replaced well received and that it will contribute when necessary, this results in both mate- to the safe keeping of important parts of rial and labour costs, so longer-lasting the cultural heritage of the world. boxes are clearly preferred. The material has to meet the same basic demands as permanent paper. The board may contain lignin, as it is not intended to be in direct contact with the documents. Additives to increase alkalinity make the lignin more stable, but do not fully eliminate its negative influence on paper documents. When storing documents in a box without file covers, the box material must be free of lignin. In addition to the requirements on the material used, the standard also contains requirements on the practicali- An A4 format box should resist the weight of two persons (photo by Marie Louise ty of boxes in terms of strength, design, Samuelsson). construction, surface and more.

Swedish national standard on archive No increase in cost boxes and file covers did not lead to any Implementation of the future new price increase. standard should not result in any price When published, ISO 16245 increases in material. Similar changes in should lay the groundwork for the com- requirements were introduced for docu- mon and widespread use of enclosures of ment paper in the 1980s without caus- an adequate quality for long-term docu- ing an increase in the price of the paper. ment storage. It should concern everyone The same results can be expected for the responsible for document management enclosure material. The adoption of the as well as enclosure suppliers around

About the authors

Jiri Jan Kolar Jörgen Wyke is is the Convenor the editor of of ISO/TC 46/ ISO/TC 46/ WG 5, Archive WG 5, Archive boxes. He has boxes. He has worked as been project researcher for leader at Swed- the Swedish ish Standards Pulp and Paper Institute (SIS), Research Insti- Department of tute for over Information 20 years, and has been Principal Admin- Management, since 2001. He is also istrative Officer at the National Archives involved in areas such as geographic of Sweden, Division of preservation, information and user interfaces. since 1995. He holds a Master of Science He received a Master of Science degree degree in wood, pulp and paper chemistry in mechanical engineering from the and technology from the Royal Institute Lund Institute of Technology, Sweden, of Technology in Stockholm. in 1992.

ISO Focus April 2008 35 Developments and Initiatives Focus on an ISO partner – the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency

The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, better known by its acronym, Sida, is a regular partner of ISO in the development area. Sida’s Margareta Davidson-Abdelli is Senior Advisor, ISO Focus : How would you summa- cooperation, as well as deciding the focus Trade Policy issues, focusing mostly rize the mission of Sida (the Swedish of cooperation. on technical barriers to trade International Development Coopera- One important principle is that and sanitary and phytosanitary tion Agency) ? each partner country is responsible for measures. She is currently the its own development. Sida’s mission is lead donor representative for Sida : The overriding goal of Swedish to create opportunities for change and the Standard Trade Development development cooperation is to contrib- development. In addition to direct cooper- Facility, a joint WTO//FAO/WHO/ ute to making it possible for poor peo- ation with individual countries, Sida also OIE/World Bank 1) initiative in the ple to improve their living conditions. administers the Swedish contributions to area of sanitary and phytosanitary Sida works on behalf of Sweden’s par- the regional and international develop- measures. This interview with Ms. liament and government to reduce ment cooperation programmes. Davidson-Abdell takes readers poverty in the world. Its activities range behind the Sida acronym to provide over many areas. It is Sweden’s parlia- 1) WTO – World Trade Organization, a fuller portrait of the organization. ment and government that stipulate the FAO – Food and Agriculture Organization, budgets, and decide which countries are WHO – World Health Organization, to be included in Swedish development OIE – World Organisation for Animal Health

36 ISO Focus April 2008 ISO Focus : How does Sida’s support of poverty and increase their participation ISO fit your objectives of providing assist- in the global economy ? ance to developing countries ? Sida : International trade is vital to eco- Sida : In recent years, the government of nomic growth and poverty reduction. Sweden has opened up the area of trade This is an insight that is well-founded in development as one of the areas for tech- Sweden, whose own prosperity is very nical assistance and capacity building to much based on foreign trade. It is part- be included in the work carried out by ly because of increased trade that many Sida. The two WTO Agreements – Tech- Asian countries have experienced a drop nical Barriers to Trade, and Sanitary and in the rate of poverty. Development coop- Phytosanitary Measures – have been eration plays an important role in help- specified in guidelines for Sida, where ing poor countries to take advantage of support in the area of standardization is international trade. (Top) Ms. Davidson-Abdelli, representing Sida at the mentioned specifically. Over the past two decades, the General Assembly of the African Implementation of international share of the world market held by the Regional Organization for trade agreements covers a wider range least-developed developing countries Standardization (ARSO). of socio-economic issues. Trade devel- has dropped. In order to take a larger opment has a broad perspective, partic- share of the world market, poor countries (Bottom) Sida activities – ularly when it comes to standards. Sus- must improve their production and export participants at an ARSO tainable development has to be imple- capacity, and they must develop their workshop. mented in coherence with all the polit- trade infrastructures. The rich countries, ical areas involved. Sida supported the for their part, must open their markets to pre-activities which led to the ISO Action imports from developing countries. Plan for developing countries. ISO’s There is a broad international opment cooperation, Sida supports the work to support and strengthen devel- consensus on the importance of trade in active participation of developing coun- oping countries’ participation in stand- reducing poverty, and trade is included tries in international organizations such ardization is in line with Sida’s man- in the Millennium Goals – an agreement as ISO. This is done with a two-fold aim: date, where participation and ownership amongst the world’s countries to halve on the one hand to integrate the devel- builds on a country’s responsibility over poverty by 2015. Sweden supports the oping countries in international bodies its own development. establishment of global partnership by and, on the other hand, to facilitate the stimulating cooperation between rich spread of knowledge and capacity to the and poor countries on development, the developing countries. The focus on the environment and trade. support of ISO is long-term commitment Standards have become an impor- towards capacity building. tant tool for marketing and competition. Sida is today supporting two quite I believe that sustainable development large projects within ISO. The first one is about being a part of the internation- is the ISO project to increase the partic- al work. Not until a country knows how ipation and impact of developing coun- to be a partner in standardization, and tries in international standardization has a capacity to maintain that position, on social responsibility over the period can the country participate in the glo- 2006 – 2009 (the contribution is SEK bal economy on more equal terms. The 8,2 million). This project has been set road to reach that goal is not easy, but I up to focus on the involvement of devel- believe it is possible. oping countries in the development of the standard [ISO 26000]. It is a unique process whereby developing countries ISO Focus : What specific areas is Sida participate broadly in the work for the currently supporting within ISO ? How ISO’s work opens up issues which first time under the ISO umbrella. do you see these programmes benefiting are of great importance for developing developing countries ? The second project is related to countries, such as food safety, health the ISO Action Plan for developing coun- standards, social responsibility, environ- Sida : The overall aim of Sida’s trade- tries, and follows the concept of the plan mental issues, climate change, to men- related support is to assist developing by focusing on special modules, namely tion just some areas. countries to integrate with the world those related to food safety, environment, ISO Focus : How important, in your opin- economy in a way that makes it possible climate change and energy efficiency, ion, is participation in the development to benefit from trade and promote sus- conformity assessment and trade facili- and adoption of ISO standards for devel- tainable, poverty-reducing growth. In line tation, consumer involvement in stand- oping countries in the quest to eradicate with Sida’s support of trade-related devel- ardization, societal security, participation

ISO Focus April 2008 37 Developments and Initiatives in international standardization, participation in new standards activities, information and communication technologies, Fully Networked Car long-term fellowships from developing countries, and ISO marketing and communication training (the contribution is workshop addresses SEK 17 million). climate change ISO Focus : How do you see the role of standards in other important areas con- cerning developing countries and how would you see ISO’s involvement (e.g. by Sandrine Tranchard, Communication Officer, ISO Central Secretariat climate change) ? he third edition of the Fully Net- a final product to customers that func- Sida : In my own opinion, the answer is worked Car workshop, organized in tions as expected.” in the question. Developing countries are partnership by ISO, IEC and ITU a part of ISO and ISO stands for stand- T At the opening session, ISO Sec- on 5-7 March at the Geneva International ardization in areas which are important retary-General Alan Bryden stated : “ This Motor Show 2008, focused on standards for our future living con- event is the opportunity to underline that that will facilitate the convergence of infor- ditions, such as climate innovation and standardization go hand mation and communication technologies change, energy, food in hand and how ICT support progress in (ICT) in motor vehicles, as well as address- safety, human relations, the performance, safety and functionali- ing this year’s special theme of climate and medical equipment, ties of transportation. It also shows how change. just to mention some of the collaboration between ISO, IEC and ISO’s work. It is only ITU Secretary General, Dr. Hama- ITU optimizes the channeling of world our own minds that set doun I. Touré, commented in his pres- expertise and best practices into globally the limit for what can be entation at the opening of the work- relevant international standards.” developed. I feel devel- shop : “ Today, ICTs are an integral part He indicated that ISO has been opment and sustainabil- of keeping vehicles on our roads safe directly associated with three major, recent ity will be on the agenda as focus issues and secure…This merging of technol- meetings of global significance : for a long time to come – and by devel- ogy requires that the World Standard opment I do not just think of develop- Cooperation partners, ITU, ISO and The ISO ment support from development agen- IEC, take into account each other’s Secretary- cies, such as Sida. work and cooperate at points of tech- General and nological interface so that manufac- Honda’s It is the right time to see some turers can use our standards to deliver “Earthdreams” new global changes where development car. is not just about poor or rich, but also about ownership and willingness on the part of all. We are all a part of the same system, “ the planet telus ”. In its latest support of ISO, Sida has financed the possibility for ISO to take the next step of the ISO Action Plan for developing countries, namely, the future plan to formulate the ISO technical assistance framework for 2010–2015. This provides the possibility to strengthen development further. I believe the sta- tus of standardization needs to be elevat- ed and that it should be understood far beyond the experts to become the tool it is intended to be.

38 ISO Focus April 2008 New on the shelf

• the UN Framework Convention on are forced to use the sounds of vehic- Climate Change in Bali in Decem- New ISO standard will ular traffic when possible in order to ber 2007, which gave an opportuni- make crossing the street estimate the time to start crossing the ty for highlighting the contribution street and to determine their direction of the ISO 14000 series on environ- safer for disabled persons of travel. mental management, particularly the In the case of ISO 14064 and ISO 14065 standards persons with vision relating to the accounting and verifi- and hearing impair- cation of greenhouse gas emissions by Sandrine Tranchard, ments, the majority Communication Officer, of these people have • the 2nd UN Stakeholders Forum on to rely on assist- Global Road Safety in April 2007. ISO Central Secretariat ance. The installa- ISO has recently decided to embark quipping pedestrian streets cross- tion of acoustic and on the development of a road safety ings with acoustic and tactile sig- tactile signals for management system standard that will nals to help disabled persons was pedestrian traffic provide public services and private E a step forward. The problem is that they lights based on ISO companies operating fleets of vehi- vary from one country to another. Now, 23600:2007 significantly improves the cles, including transportation servic- a new ISO standard provides the basis ability of these persons to travel safely es, freight and car rentals, with a spe- for harmonizing such signals on a world- and independently. cific and globally recognized frame- wide basis. ISO 23600:2007 was prepared by work for improving road safety The aim of ISO 23600:2007, ISO technical committee ISO/TC 173, • the 2008 meeting of the World Eco- Assistive products for persons with vision Assistive products for persons with dis- nomic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in impairments and persons with vision and ability. It is available from ISO national January, which focused on the “ pow- hearing impairments – Acoustic and tac- member institutes and from ISO Central er of collaborative innovation ”. tile signals for pedestrian traffic lights, is Secretariat through the ISO Store (www. to ensure equivalent information world- iso.org/isostore) or by contacting the Jack Sheldon, on behalf of IEC wide at intersections equipped with pedes- Marketing & Communication depart- General Secretary Aharon Amit, declared : trian crossing signals. ment ([email protected]). “ The IEC – and this applies equally to The standard sets out the require- ISO and the ITU – has an ongoing com- ments, technical specifications and perform- mitment to provide the market with time- ance criteria for acoustic and tactile signals ly and relevant standards. This commit- for pedestrian traffic lights, and will help ment embraces a vast spectrum of indus- to ensure major benefits, such as : tries, and automobiles are a significant harmonized criteria for manufactur- Managing crises with part of the market. This workshop is an • ers and designers opportunity to study who wants what new ISO standard for IT and who needs to work with whom • safe, reliable and functional products disaster recovery to provide integrated systems for net- • enhanced compatibility between worked cars ”. products The main purpose of the work- • common testing methods leading to shop was to establish a constructive dia- by Maria Lazarte, Acting Editor comparable, reliable test results. logue among market stakeholders and of ISO Focus identify how standards help the motor Acoustic and tactile signals should rom fires to earthquakes to pandem- industry to make vehicles more effi- be used in combination to provide infor- ics, businesses and other organiza- cient and safer, with lower impact on mation such as precise directional infor- tions may become the victims of the environment. mation and the geometry of the intersec- F disaster at any time. In A feature of this year’s Fully tion. The signals can indicate features for order to deal with the Networked Car exhibition was the Hon- disabled persons, for example : unexpected and safe- da Racing F1 Team’s new Formula-1 • presence and location of a push button guard the interests of “ Earthdreams ” car whose design empha- their stakeholders, as sizes environmental features and points • location of a pedestrian crosswalk well as their reputa- towards green automotive technologies walk initiation period • tion, brand and val- of the future. • direction of the pedestrian crosswalk ue-creating activities, • prohibited walk initiation period. a new ISO Internation- al Standard will help At an intersection that is not them mitigate risks equipped with acoustic and tactile sig- and be prepared to nals, persons with vision impairments respond to crises.

ISO Focus April 2008 39 New on the shelf

ISO/IEC 24762:2008, Informa- • the selection of a recovery site (e.g. tion technology – Security techniques considering factors such as environ- – Guidelines for information and com- mental stability, good infrastructure, munications technology disaster recov- etc.) ; and ery services, aims to offer guidance on • requirements for ICT DR service pro- the information and communications viders to continuously improve their technologies and services necessary for ICT DR services. disaster recovery (ICT DR) as part of business continuity ISO/IEC 24762:2008 is an initi- management. With ative of ISO and the International Elec- this guidance, the trotechnical Commission (IEC) devel- standard supports oped within the joint technical commit- the operation of an Mr. Philip Sy, project editor tee ISO/IEC JTC1, Information technol- information security of ISO/IEC 24762:2008, commented : ogy, subcommittee SC 27, IT Security management system “ This next generation standard takes into techniques. (ISMS) by address- account today’s technological develop- This international standard can be ing the information ments to minimize damage in a crisis complemented by two other joint ISO/ security and avail- situation from an information security IEC standards providing control objec- ability aspects of and communication standpoint. tives for information security aspects of business continui- “ The fallback arrangements business continuity management to fur- ty management in included in the standard,” he empha- ther reduce risk : time of crisis. sized, “ will help out both during peri- A business ods of minor outages and, more impor- • ISO/IEC 27001:2005, Information continuity plan comprises an organi- tantly, will play an essential role in technology – Security techniques – zation’s strategies to prepare for future ensuring information and service avail- Information security management national, regional or local crises that ability during a disaster or failure, and systems – Requirements ; and could jeopardize its capacity to contin- for a long-term complete recovery of • ISO/IEC 27002:2005, Information ue with its core mission, as well as its activities. technology – Security techniques – long-term stability. “ This is particularly important Code of practice for information secu- According to ISO/IEC 24762:2008, today as organizations around the world rity management. business continuity management is an are increasingly vulnerable to threats of integral part of any holistic risk man- terrorism, natural disasters, piracy and ISO/IEC 24762:2008 is available agement process and involves : other crises ”, concluded Mr. Sy. from ISO national member institutes and The standard includes guidelines from ISO Central Secretariat through the • identifying potential threats that may on the implementation, testing and exe- ISO Store (www.iso.org/isostore) or by cause adverse impacts on an organiza- cution aspects of disaster recovery, and contacting the Marketing & Communica- tion’s business operations, and asso- can be applicable to both “in-house” and tion department ([email protected]). ciated risks ; “outsourced” ICT DR service providers of physical facilities and services. It pro- • providing a framework for building resilience for business operations ; vides guidance on : • implementing, operating, monitoring providing capabilities, facilities, pro- • and maintaining the necessary facili- cesses, action task lists, etc., for effec- ties and services necessary for disas- tive responses to disasters and fail- ter recovery (such as the implementa- ures. tion of a public announcement system With this new standard, organi- to alert personnel to leave a building, zations will be able to build resilience or the requirement that all electronic into their information and communica- doors can be opened manually from tions technology (ICT) infrastructure the inside) ; critical to their key business activities. • fallback and recovery support for the This will complement their business organization’s ICT systems ; continuity management initiative (to better manage relevant risks possibly • the capabilities which outsourced ICT interrupting their business activities) DR service providers should possess and their information security manage- and the practices they should follow, ment initiative (to effectively protect the so as to provide basic secure operat- confidentiality, integrity and availabil- ing environments and facilitate the ity of information). organizations’ recovery efforts ;

40 ISO Focus April 2008 Coming up

Guest View

Interview with Mr. Antoine Frérot, CEO of Veolia Water Reinforcing the main focus on services, next month’s Guest View will feature an interview with Antoine Frérot, CEO of Veolia Water, the world leader in water and waste water services. M. Frérot discusses environmental management measures taken by Veolia Water, and the company’s contribution to water conservation. Veolia Water is a division of Veolia Environment, which has been listed in sustainable development indexes as a result of its good performance. Reviewing his company’s environmental policies and achievements, M. Frérot exam- ines the role of international standards in Veolia Water’s operations.

Main Focus

Services committees have scopes of work which are specific to services. Few will not have noticed the marked The next issue of ISO Focus looks at and steady expansion of the services international standardization for services. sector in recent years. Services of one How can standards help in improving form or another permeate every part of personal services (such as financial our lives – as consumer, as supplier, or planning), public services (such as the both. The field is vast – from traditional supply of drinking water), marketing sales-related services to intangibles services (such as market, opinion and such as banking, insurances and other social research) ? financial services, not forgetting tourism, education, information, medical, public It looks at the question of consumer services. The list can go on and on. requirements, and how a new ISO/IEC guide can help address consumer issues With the increasing development of the in the development of service standards, sector, has come a growing demand for and help service providers to understand standards to ensure quality and good what consumers want. practice in the supply of services. ISO has been highly active in this area. Service standards of great importance to the business community include quality International standards defining of IT services, with particular focus on requirements for many aspects of serv- information security management and ice quality already existed, notably service management. within the generic ISO 9000 series of quality management standards. Along- The work of the newer committees is In discussing the part played by the side these, an array of standards also discussed. Hot topics such as company in the international standardi- addressing a multitude of specific patent valuation, brand valuation, and zation process, he applauds the excel- services and service-related topics has rating services. lent and constructive collaboration with been developed to meet market You will find all these and more in the consumers at the heart of committee demand. Further, a number of the next issue of ISO Focus. work in developing ISO standards on more recently created ISO technical drinking water and wastewater services.

ISO Focus April 2008 41 Ad complaints handling.indd 1 31.01.2008 14:24:21