IFLA Standards’ Groups

Committee on Standards

The IFLA Committee on Standards coordinates standards work within and beyond IFLA and support standards activities in IFLA professional units, principally in Sections.

BCM Review Group

The Bibliographic Conceptual Models Review Group provides ongoing support for the maintenance and development of IFLA’s bibliographic conceptual models.

ISBD Review Group

The main objective of the ISBD Review Group is to maintain the International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD), which is intended to serve as a principal standard to promote universal bibliographic control, to make universally and promptly available, in a form that is internationally acceptable, basic bibliographic data for all published resources in all countries. The ISBD’s main goal is, and has been since the very beginning, to offer consistency when sharing bibliographic information.

Linked Data Technical Review Group (LIDATEC)

The main objectives of LIDATEC are to:

  • Coordinate the development of namespaces by IFLA groups who wish to publish standards in a linked data form;
  • Develop and promote guidelines for the efficient and effective management of IFLA namespaces;
  • Discuss and formulate the framework for a namespace registration system for IFLA standards;
  • Develop training materials for units wishing to publish their standards in namespace registry;
  • Oversee the development of infrastructure to support the efficient and effective management of IFLA namespaces;
  • Support the Committee on Standards in areas of linked data and the Semantic Web;
  • Act as liaison with non-IFLA groups involved in the organization of information as linked data in the Semantic Web;
  • Promote and make more visible the IFLA namespaces and encourage their use in all appropriate communities.

Relations with External Standards’ Bodies

IFLA has formal relationships with the following library standards-issuing bodies. The Governing Board appoints representatives to attend meetings of these bodies and these representatives submit regular reports to the IFLA Committee on Standards

International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

ISO is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organisations. ISO is the world’s largest developer of voluntary International Standards. IFLA is registered as Category A liaison (Organizations that make an effective contribution to the work of the technical committee or subcommittee for questions dealt with by this technical committee or subcommittee) with:

IFLA Representative: Paola Manoni (2010-)

European Committee for Standardization (CEN)

CEN (Comité Européen de Normalisation) is a non-profit organisation whose mission is to foster the European economy in global trading, the welfare of European citizens and the environment by providing an efficient infrastructure to interested parties for the development, maintenance and distribution of coherent sets of standards and specifications.

IFLA is represented on the Technical Body: CEN/TC 346 – European Committee for Standardization’s Technical Committee – Conservation of Cultural Heritage

IFLA Representative: Renate Behrens (2019-2021)

International ISBN Agency Board

The International ISBN Agency Board meets twice a year to discuss the key issues which affect the ISBN system and to report on projects that the agency is involved in or which are relevant to its operations. IFLA was granted observer status to the International ISBN Agency Board in 2007; re-affirmed in March 2013.

IFLA is an ex officio Director of the Board (no voting rights and no term limit but has influence over discussions of the Board). The ISBN Agency Board meets in person twice a year – once at the London Book Fair (April each year) and once in September at the venue where the Board has it AGM.

IFLA Representative: Ulrike Junger (2019-2021)