General information on access to standards worldwide
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Each national standards body manages its own collection of standards and has access to the collections of other institutes. It places this collection at the disposal of the economic players and proposes a range of services. These may include:
WSSN To facilitate access to standards information and services, WSSN maintains direct links to the Web sites of organizations in the following categories:
A world map with listing of the above sites by region and by country is also provided. In turn, the national members of ISO and IEC maintain links to related national organizations and, where applicable, to national standards-related networks, such as NSSN (a resource for US, international and regional standards information in the USA, accessible through the Web site of ANSI - American National Standards Institute), SISC (Standards Information Service of Canada, accessible through the Web site of SCC - Standards Council of Canada), etc. The WSSN structured index provides a means of easy access to specific pages of the Web sites of WSSN members, such as contact information, catalogues, etc. Information about organizations falling into the above categories which do not have Web sites may be obtained as follows:
ISO and IEC Web sites provide detailed information on activities of these organizations and their products and services including general information about the organizations, information on membership and technical committees, technical programmes of work, catalogues of international standards and publications, access to standards and publications, information on new developments in standardization and related areas, etc. ISODOC The ISODOC server is designed for access to ISO working documents, in PDF format, related to the activities of the ISO General Assembly, Council, policy development committees (CASCO, COPOLCO and DEVCO), TMB, their groups and ITSIG. Access to the server is password protected and is reserved for ISO members and the ISO Central Secretariat. The original access to ISODOC is provided via ISO Online. However, for the convenience of the staff members of the national standards organization, it is also provided via the home page of this Web site. Other sources of information ISONET: the information centres of a number of national standards bodies, regional standardizing bodies and international standardizing bodies cooperate within the framework of ISONET, the ISO Information Network. ISONET is an agreement between standardizing bodies to combine their efforts in order to make information on standards, technical regulations and related matters readily available whenever it is required. ISONET members agree to share experience and exchange information as required with each other, enabling information about foreign national standards and regulations to be obtained through the local ISONET member. Contact information for ISONET members and information on the services they provide is given in the ISONET Directory. WTO TBT and WTO SPS enquiry points: these WTO Agreements* foresee the establishment of national enquiry points to provide information and assistance about relevant technical regulations, standards and conformity assessment procedures. For countries where there is an ISONET member, contact information for relevant WTO TBT and WTO SPS national enquiry points is included in the ISONET Directory. Complete listings of WTO TBT and WTO SPS national enquiry points are maintained by the WTO. * WTO TBT: World Trade Organization Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade;
Free versus chargeable information services Depending on the type of information being sought, the response provided may be free or may enter into the framework of a chargeable service. As a rule, information on standardization and certification systems, the identification of information concerning the standards, products and services offered by each member of WSSN will be free. Similarly, the catalogue service of WSSN members, allowing identification of the references of standards in force in each country and the document ordering service will also usually be offered free of charge. The publications of the standards bodies (standards, handbooks, hardcopy catalogues, etc.) are chargeable, and each body has its own tariffs. The document services (databank, normative watch service in hardcopy form, CD-ROM and online services, added-value services) will also be chargeable. Some tools ICS, International Classification for Standards Inasmuch as an ever-growing number of standards catalogues are structured in
accordance with the ICS, the users of standards benefit from a common access
key to many of the standards collections of the world. Users have a more
comprehensive view over their fields of interest thanks to a multiple
classification of the standards and are better guided in their search. ICS
comprises 40 fields, subdivided into 389 groups, 133 |
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