NISO is accredited by the
American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and develops technical standards used in publishing, libraries, media, and other content distribution. NISO develops both formal U.S National Standards as well as recommended practices. It also hosts a variety of educational and training programs for the community. NISO is designated by ANSI to represent U.S. interests to the
International Organization for Standardization's Technical Committee 46 (Information and Documentation), all of its subcommittees, as well as the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 Subcommittee 34 - Document description and processing languages (
JTC 1/SC 34). In 2008, NISO was appointed Secretariat on behalf of ANSI for the TC 46 Subcommittee 9 (
TC 46/SC 9) - Identification and Description. NISO approved standards are published by ANSI. Unlike most other ANSI standards, all of NISO standards and best practices are freely available from its web site. Designations (names) of NISO standards all start with
ANSI/NISO Z39 (read zee or zed thirty nine). In addition to formal standards, NISO also publishes recommended practices, technical reports and other consensus documents, and offers continuing education for librarians and information professionals.
Information Standards Quarterly (
ISQ), NISO's magazine, has been available online as
open access since 2011. ==List of standards==