insoft-l Fwd: NEW PROPOSED STANDARD ON ALPHANUMERICAL SORTING (fwd)

[Nancy Hoft <itech -at- MV -dot- MV -dot- COM>]

FYI.  I think this affects many of us. Hope you will consider submitting
your comments!

- Nancy Hoft
               ..............................


NEW PROPOSED STANDARD ON ALPHANUMERICAL SORTING TO BE ISSUED

The National Information Standards Organization(NISO) is seeking
comments on a new proposed standard, Alphabetical Arrangement of
Letters and the Sorting of Numerals and Other Symbols
(ANSI/NISO Z39.75-199x).

"This is the first American National Standard on alphanumerical
arrangement," said Pat Harris, Executive Director of NISO.
"It reconciles the many conflicting rules that previously governed
the arrangement of listings in telephone directories, library
catalogs, indexes, bibliographies, and other reference works.
These conflicting rules have been a major source of confusion
for the general public. The new standard will make it much easier
for users to locate information in telephone directories, library
catalogs, indexes, dictionaries, bibliographies, and soon."

In addition to prescribing absolute rules for alphanumerical
arrangement, ANSI/NISO Z39.75 makes the first-ever attempt to
prescribe rules for the arrangement of symbols other than
letters or numerals. As such, the standard provides important
new guidelines for the creation of machine-executable
indexes and listings. Other computer sort sequences, such as
the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (7-bit ASCII)
(ANSI X3.4) do not produce user-friendly indexes, bibliographies,
or library catalogs, because they sort uppercase and lowercase
letters separately and sort punctuation marks and symbols in
various places between numerals and letters.

Virtually all other major industrialized countries have developed
their own alphanumerical sorting standards. However, there is no
international standard because alphabetization is language-specific,
and no two languages written in the Roman script share the exact same
alphabet and rules of spelling. If approved, ANSI/NISO Z39.75 may
ultimately serve wherever the English language is used in written form.

This standard was developed by NISO Standards Committee AK, chaired
by Dr. Hans Wellisch (University of Maryland).  Serving on the
committee are:  Ann Case (The H.W. Wilson Company), Ruth Christ
(University of Iowa), Jessica Milstead (The JELEM Company),
Don Riseborough (R.R. Bowker Company), and Albert Simmonds
(R.R. Bowker Company)

The review period for Z39.75-199x is July 7, 1995 - September 7, 1995.
Copies of the draft revised standard are available from NISO Press
for $35.00 per copy plus shipping. Orders should be sent to:
NISO Press, P.O. Box 338, Oxon Hill, MD 20750-0338.
Telephone: 301-567-9522, Fax: 301-567-9553.







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