National Information Standards Organization
From Freepedia
The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is a United States non-profit standards organization that develops, maintains and publishes technical standards related to bibliographic and library applications. It was founded in 1939, incorporated as a not-for-profit education association in 1983, and assumed its current name in 1984.
NISO is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and is designated by ANSI to represent U.S. interests to the International Organization for Standardization's Technical Committee 46 (Information and Documentation).
NISO approved standards are published by ANSI. Unlike most other ANSI standards, many NISO standards are freely available from its web site.
Designations (names) of NISO standards all start with "ANSI/NISO Z39." (read zee or zed thirty nine dot). Z39.50 and Z39.88 are two NISO standards inportant in the library community.
