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Standards
Table of Contents
What is a Standard?
Who Creates Standards?
Locating Standards
Accessing Standards
What is a Standard?
- Professional Societies such as IEEE, ASTM
- Industry Associations such as the Association of American Railroads and the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry
- Government Agencies such as the Department of Defense, Department of Energy
- International Standardizing Bodies - many countries have their own national standardizing bodies
- American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
- Canadian Standards Association (CSA)
- British Standards Institute (BSI)
- Deutsches Institut fur Normung (DIN)
- ANSI (American National Standards Institute) - enter keywords into the left hand search box.
- ASME. American Society of Mechanical Engineers Select "Codes and Standards" from the righthand menu.
- ASTM. American Society for Testing and Materials Search by ASTM designation (standard number) or by keyword.
- DOE Technical Standards.
- Department Of Defense Specifications and Standards can be searched using the ASSIST database, users need to register on the site for a username and password
- ISO Online (in English). Their catalog is available here.
- ITU-T. The International Telecommunication Union. Browse by subject.
- The Scholarly Societies Project's standards pages.
The Scholarly Societies Project gathers links to scholarly societies, including standardizing organizations, to assist researchers in locating them. - The Standards Engineering Society
Lists of US, Canadian, and international organizations that develop standards sorted alphabetically. The most comprehensive of the directories listed here. - Web Sites for Standards
A directory of important standardizing bodies. The site is maintained by the engineering, aviation and technology librarian at Saint Louis University. Annotated with information about each organization. - World Standards Services Network (WSSN)
WSSN provides an index of international, regional and national standards organizations.
A standard, or standard specification, indicates the properties, dimension, performance, qualities and testing to which manufacturers and services are recommended to conform.
Standards are used by producers and consumers of goods and services. They specify how an item should be made by providing exact measurements and specifications about materials and processes. Standards are responsible for ensuring safety, reliability, quality, interchangeability of parts, and consistency of products and processes within and across national borders. Standards ensure that any brand of light bulb can fit a lamp or any brand appliance can be plugged into an electrical socket. Engineers generally need to consult the appropriate standards when creating new products, processes, or designs.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provides a good overview of standards, including their history, benefits, and the procedures for writing them.
Who Creates Standards?
There are hundreds of standards-generating bodies worldwide and these include:
In addition there is the International Standards Organization (ISO), it creates and approves international standards. It deals with all areas except electrical and electronics standards which are handled by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).
Locating Standards
The University of Pennsylvania Library holds few standards in its collections and a search of the library catalog for standards will not yield relevant results, good places to search are listed below.
REMEMBER, these are tools to help you identify the standards you need. They rarely provide you with the free full text of the standard.
Document Center - http://www.document-center.com Standards and specifications from many industry, military and government organizations. You can search by document number or keyword. Standards are available for a fee.
IHS/Global - http://global.ihs.com A commercial site that allows you to search a wide variety of industry, government and military standards from many different organizations. You can search by document number, keywords, industry or standardizing organization. The standards themselves are available for a fee.
NSSN: A National Resource for Global Standards - An online database that allows you to find and order standards from many different agencies. Go to http://www.nssn.org/, click on Search for Standards and enter either a title, document number or keyword as search terms.
Techstreet - www.techstreet.com A commercial site that allows you to search or browse the catalogs of several major standardizing bodies including ASTM, ANSI, ISO and BSI. Standards can be ordered at a fee from this site.
Most standardizing bodies produce catalogs of their published standards which can be searched to find relevant standards. A few examples are listed below:
Of course, this is only a very small selection of the standardizing bodies that may be relevant to your interests. Several good directories are available on the web.
Accessing Standards
It is easiest to access a standard if you know the acronym and name of the publishing organizations, the standard number and the title, date and subject of the standard you want, so write those down when you find them.
The Library does not hold many standards, so please refer to the list below for library holdings or sites that offer full text of certain government department standards.
- ASME - The ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code 2004 is available electronically through Knovel.
- ASTM -The Engineering Library has print copies of the ASTM standards at Engineering Reference TA401 .A653
- The Code of Federal Regulations is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government. It is available from the Government Printing Office.
- Department of Defense (DOD) Specifications and Standards are available in full text from the ASSIST database. You will need to register on the site for a username and password
- Department of Energy (DOE) technical standards can be downloaded from the DOE website
- IEEE - All current IEEE standards are available online to students, faculty and staff of the University via the IEL
- Other standards listed in Franklin. Use the Subject Heading Search for Standards, Engineering, or for Standards, Military, or use the Subject Heading Keyword Search to search for standards in the appropriate discipline. If you have trouble using these search features, please ask a librarian for help.
