National Information Standards Organization
The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is a US standards organization that develops, maintains and publishes technical standards for bibliographic and library applications. It was founded in 1939, converted into a non-profit educational organization in 1983 and received its current name in 1984.
The NISO is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and represents the interests of the USA in Technical Committee 46 ( Information and Documentation ) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
NISO standards are published by ANSI. Many NISO standards are available on the organization's website.
All names of the NISO standards begin with »ANSI / NISO Z39.«. examples are
- Z39.2 ( MARC for bibliographic data)
- Z39.50 (protocol for accessing bibliographic databases)
- Z39.83-2002 (National Information Standards Organization Circulation Interchange Protocol; NCIP for short)
- Z39.86-2005 ( DAISY Digital Talking Book , DTBook )
- Z39.87 (elements for describing technical metadata of image files, see NISO MIX )
- Z39.88 ( OpenURL )