Web version: http://www.ifla.org/en/news/new-ifla-committee-on-standards

PURPOSE

The newly formed IFLA Committee on Standards will coordinate standards work within and beyond IFLA and support standards activities in IFLA professional units, principally in sections. The Committee on Standards starts up its activities in January 2012 and will conduct most of its work virtually with its first face-to-face meeting to take place during the IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Helsinki, Finland. The IFLA Committee on Standards is a general IFLA committee, reporting directly to IFLA's Governing Board.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The Committee will:

*       Provide a central focus for standards in order to raise the visibility of standards within and beyond IFLA, eg. with ISO, AFNOR, DIN, etc.
*       Ensure the maintenance of standards through a common approach for their creation, translation, version control; ensure procedures for the initiation, development, validation and publishing of standards are current and widely        available;
*       Coordinate the development, maintenance, storage and access for all kinds of IFLA standards documents;
*       Monitor and propose to Governing Board the validation of standards; provide support for professional units in the standards development and validation processes
*       Provide support for the work of professional activities, policies and communication at IFLA HQ in relation to standards;
*       Support IFLA's strategic priorities, advocacy initiatives and any other IFLA ongoing activities; undertake strategic planning for standards;
*       Manage the IFLA open access policy for IFLA standards documents;
*       Ensure that digital versions of standards are accessible and stored in an appropriate IFLA website "portal" according to requirements as proposed by the current IFLA Namespaces Task Group, this to ensure compatibility of IFLA       standards with the semantic web;
*       Ensure that a listing of standards according to categories and purposes, ongoing standards work (WGs) and publication information is maintained on IFLA's website;
*       Provide advice to the Governing Board on IFLA representation in standards-related activities, including conferences, meetings, publications (inside and outside of IFLA)
*       Organize a "standards" open program during IFLA WLIC
*       Promote IFLA standards through newsletter(s), IFLA website, ICBC, IFLA Journal and other means
*       Any other matters that may impact on IFLA's Standards that are referred to the Committee by the Governing Board.

COMPOSITION

Chair: Patrice Landry, Swiss National Library

   Division I: Tay Ai Cheng, National Library Board of Singapore
   Division II: Françoise Pellé, ISSN International Center
   Division III: Anders Cato, Gothenburg University Library
   Division IV: Marian Koren, Netherlands Public Library Association
   Division V: Chih-Feng P. Lin, Shih Hsin University, Taiwan
   Permanent UNIMARC Committee Chair: Alan Hopkinson, Middlesex University, United Kingdom
   CDNL representative: (TBA)