Subcommittee Files of Approved Z39 Standards, 1950-1985 and undated

This series contains the working files of Z39 standards subcommittees, draft standards, and published standards. Subcommittee files often contain minutes of meetings, voting records on the standard, correspondence, and collected research on the proposed standard. The files are arranged consecutively by standard numbers with brackets to indicate where folder titles have been assigned by the archivist.

Recommendations for standards are made to the Program Committee, who prioritizes them, names them, provides the subcommittee's scope, and assists in locating chairmen for the subcommittees. The chairman either recruits from a list of potential members or recruits his own members. Standars subcommittees are composed of professionals with expertise in the standard's scope or in related fields. After the submcommittee prepares a draft, the entire NISO membership and other internested persons and organizations receive the draft for comment. Conflicting opinions are resolved, if possible, before the drraft standard is submitted to the NISO membership for a formal vote. Each approved standard is then publicly announced in ANSI's Standard Action for wider comment. The standard is then examined by the ANSI Board of Standards Review and, once approved, it is published and given the next unique consecutive number with the year of approval as an extension. Published standards are reviewed every five years, using the same procedure that a new standards subcommittee would employ. Standards that have been reviewed after five years and reapproved retain their unique numbers with only the date being changed.