Introducing ANSI-X3.138-1988: a standard for information resource dictionary system (IRDS)

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) released its standard for information resources dictionary systems on 19 October 1988. The standard was formulated by the ANSI Technical Committee for Information Resources and Dictionary (X3H4), a Technical Committee of the ANSI Accredited Standards Committee for Information Processing Systems (X3). The purpose of the standard is to define the requirements of a software tool used to describe, document, control, protect, and provide access to information about the information assets of an organization. Recently, two additional standards have been approved to supplement the basic standard. One, X3.185, addresses the interface requirements between an IRDS and external software. The other, X3.195, addresses export/import requirements for exchanging information between ANSI IRDSs. This paper summarizes the conceptual evolution of repositories, provides an overview of the IRDS standards and outlines future directions for evolution of IRDS standards.<>