Standards Committee Activities 2025

Ballot Title: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34/JWG 7 (EPUB) – ISO/IEC CD 22424, Digital publishing – Long-term archiving for EPUB (EPUB/A)

Vote

‘Yes’ with comments.

Comments

• Typo on 8.2 Metadata, for “Creation Date or Start Date/End Date (dc:date)”.
• The reference for EPUB should be updated. Other related standards are:

• EPUB 3.3 Implementation report: 2025-05-02 w3c.github.io/epub-specs/epub33/reports/
• EPUB 3.3 W3C Recommendation 2025-03-27 www.w3.org/TR/epub-33
• EPUB Accessibility 1.1 also has the newer version. This standard needs to check “Conformance and Discoverability Requirements for EPUB publications” 2024-10-17 www.w3.org/TR/epub-a11y-11
• There is a Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 , W3C Recommendation, 2024-12-12. www.w3.org/TR/epub-a11y-11
• Government of Canada – Accessibility Standards Canada
  ASC-6.2 Accessible and Equitable Artificial Intelligence Systems. 2025-03. [Status: Public Review] accessible.canada.ca/creating-accessibility-standards/…
• ISO 14289-2:2024 (February 2024) Document management applications – Electronic document file format enhancement for accessibility Part 2: Use of ISO 32000-2 (PDF/UA-2) www.iso.org/standard/82278.html
• EN 301 549 (EU Standard) Harmonised European Standard. Accessibility requirements for ICT products and services (March 2021) https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_en/301500_301599/301549/03.02.01_60/en_301549v030201p.pdf

Description

ISO/IEC CD 22424, Information technology – Digital publishing – EPUB 3 archiving for preservation (EPUB/A) specifies content conformance and packaging requirements for the long-term preservation of EPUB publications. It represents a more restrictive form of EPUB publication than allowed by ISO/IEC 23736 and EPUB 3.3.

Description: ISO 8459:2009, Bibliographic data element directory for use in data exchange and Inquiry describes, in the form of a directory, data elements used to support the processes of acquisition, resource description and cataloguing, searching and requesting loan or copy by an end user or an institution. Vote: ‘Yes’ with comments. Comment: The ISO document includes a detailed data element dictionary which one needs to review page-by-page since the form has a different direction and the elements cannot be searchable. There are rich classes and sub-classes, e.g., under “Resource” there is a detailed one on Bibliographic description and also a whole group of Rights management. (was wondering why no ‘right’ or ‘copyright’ in the Bibliographic Description, found this whole group for that. Good.) The coverage under Party-Person for Personal Status is fine, although those are the ones got more attentions in the real situations related to bibliographic data creation during recent few years.

Description:

ISO 4: 1997 gives rules for abbreviating titles of serials and, if appropriate, non-serial documents in languages using the Latin, Cyrillic and Greek alphabets. This International Standard also serves as the basis for the establishment of title word abbreviations by the ISSN Network.

Vote:

Approve with comments.

Comments:

When applying ISO 4:1997(E) abbreviation rules to non-Roman scripts, conflicts can arise. Therefore, languages using non-Roman scripts should develop their own national or institutional guidelines, adapting ISO principles to local linguistic structures. Preparing language-specific abbreviation lists and adopting standardized transliteration practices will maintain semantic precision while aligning with ISO standards.

Description

‘ISO/FDIS 11108, Information and documentation – Archival paper – Requirements for permanence and durability’ specifies the requirements for archival paper. It is applicable to unprinted papers intended for documents and publications required for permanent retention and frequent use. For these documents and publications, paper of high permanence and high durability is required.

Question: Do you approve the technical content of ISO/FDIS 11108?

NOTE: This is an FDIS (Final Draft International Standard) ballot. At this stage, only editorial comments are permitted. We are not permitted to introduce any new technical issues.

Decision: Voted ‘No’ with comments.

Comment:

ISO/FDIS 11108 relates to the following standards and therefore proposed to be included in references.

• ISO 18902:2013 – Imaging materials… (Provides guidelines for storage materials that could affect archival paper preservation, especially in mixed media contexts).
• ISO 16245:2023 Information and documentation — Boxes, file covers and other enclosures, made from cellulosic materials…(Addresses storage enclosures, which are critical for maintaining the condition of archival paper).
• ISO 11799:2024 Information and documentation — Document storage requirements for archive and library materials (Provides guidelines for the storage conditions necessary to preserve archival documents).

Description:

ISO/FDIS 16687, Impact assessment for museums defines methods for measuring and assessing the impact of museums on individuals and on society. The methods described can be used for identifying areas of influence of museums and their services, and for reporting such influence to stakeholders and the general public.

Decision:

Approved with comments.

Comments:

The overall ISO/FDIS 16687, Impact assessment for museums looks fine for approval. It connects to a number of ISO standards. We would like to bring attention to ISO 21127.[1] Since ISO/FDIS16687 also includes cataloging as one of the “Core functions of museums” in section 4, we would like to recommend to at least refer to the ISO 21127:2023 for CIDOC-CRM,[1] the most well-known model in the museum field, and led to the real applicable model e.g., Linked Art Model.[2] and APIs[3].

[1] ISO 21127:2023. Information and documentation – A reference ontology for the interchange of cultural heritage information

[2] Linked Art Data Model.

[3] Linked Art API.

Description

ISO/TC 46/SC 9 and ISO/TC 171/SC 2 are liaisons and as such this document is being shared. This document is in the ISO Fast-Track process which means with a positive vote, it goes to publication.

‘ISO/DIS 22144, Authenticity of information – Content Credentials‘ describes the technical aspects of the C2PA architecture known as Content Credentials. It is a model for storing and accessing cryptographically verifiable information whose trustworthiness can be assessed based on a defined trust model. Included in this document is information about how to create and process a C2PA Manifest and its components, including the use of digital signature technology for enabling tamper-evidence as well as establishing trust.

Question: Do you approve the technical content of ISO/DIS 22144?

Decision:

Voted ‘No’ with comments.

Comments:

Since this is very technical and referred to various other ISO standards and technical metadata, we think the details are fine, as I saw in Chapter 16 C2PA Standard Assertions. However, we would like to remind to double check the versions of those listed under Chapter “2 Normative references.”
1). Those listed ISO standards might be consistent even though the date could be very old (e.g., 2001 for TIFF). A double check will be helpful.
E.g., ISO 16684-3, for JSON-LD serialization of XMP has a 2021 edition. It is fine without giving the year in this standard, but it should be consistent on if to give the year and provide the URL or not for each ISO standard in this chapter (E.g., “ISO/IEC 646:1991” is listed here with the year provided).
2) “Dublin Core™ Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1: Reference Description should be updated. It is clear under this webpage that “Please note that this version of the specification for the Dublin Core Element Set is somewhat out of date. Please see the DCMI Metadata Terms for the current documentation of its fifteen terms.” So, this standard ISO/DIS 22144 should make sure to follow the current one.
3) The W3C’s might also need to have a decision by the committee on if to use the one updated, even though it might be in the finalized period. (E.g., W3C on PNG now is 3rd edition)
So, we should recommend this ISO/DIS 22144 to have a revision on this chapter “2 Normative references.”
It should be noticed that this chapter has the introduction that “For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.” Maybe some issues above in #1) can be ignored, but the issue in #2 should be solved.