Information Standards: Models for Future Development

Michael B. Spring, Research associate professor of information science at the University of Pittsburgh, and Toni Carbo Bearman, Dean of the School of Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh.

6/19/2009
(Original Publish Date: 9/1/1988)

Like publishers and librarians, information scientists have a strong interest in the history of standards development and in its future. Michael B. Spring and Toni Carbo Bearman discuss the history of information science and its relation to standards development. In their description of present activities, they focus on the activities of ANSI's Accredited Standards Committee X3, Computers and Information Processing, and the National Information Standards Organization. They then discuss two possible models of information-- the life cycle model and the taxonomy model--that might provide guidance for the development of information-processing standards, or at least a starting point for discussion.