Normalization 2000+ (1996 edtion)       
The world of the virtual document
Prof.dr.Ir. C.A.J. Simons
(translation by G.J. Aben)

Changed, 3 July 1998
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The creation and distribution of standards and related documents are in a transitional phase. The well-trusted paper documents are more and more created with the aid of electronic appliances, and the results of this creation process become increasingly available in an electronic form.

The "paper less" society is by far not a reality, this in view of the predilection for "certainty" of many to choose for a "hard copy" on paper. This in respect of the current imperfections of the infra structure for electronic communication, making the "portability" of paper documents by far superior to electronic documents.

In the following, the characteristics of the paper era and the electronic database era will be discussed. Finally I will enlighten the main issues, in my opinion, for the electronic database era.

Paper era:

	Impopular archives: These takes up more and more space. Beside that such archives are dependent, for the orderliness, on a good discipline of many within the organization whose main task is not the management of archives.
	Sending out information on paper to subscribers, which perhaps will not use the information, but yes, they are on the mailing list.
	Uncertainty if real applicants are informed about the existence of the information.
	Each update is leading again to a paper flow. It is to be hoped that the receiver will replace the outdated document by a the new version.
	There will always be the uncertainty if all applicants are using the same (and correct) information.

"Electronic databases" era:

	Paper flows are omitted.
	Each applicant and authorized member of the organization can evoke the required information instantly.
	Simultaneously updates for the entire organization. This means: all the applicants can have the same information at their disposal.
	Duplications in the collection of information will disappear.
	There will be the possibility of: preservation without binders / searching without glancing / copying without possession of the original.
	A disadvantage could be: databases are often a memory without recollection. Only the most recent information is direct available.

Tasks of the standardization-department in the "electronic databases" era:

The influence, caused by the surroundings, on the conduct of business is increasing. In the field of: organization quality, product safety, health, safety on the job, we have to take into account the European or national legislation. This is often resulting in obligatory or de facto obligatory certification-requirements of authorities, co-makers, clients and end-users.

By this the significance of external (national / regional / international) standards has increased, opposite to standards created within companies. We also see that current standardization departments are more and more playing the role of an information broker. This means, amongst others, collection of external information, such as: standards, legislation, specifications, elucidation’s, etc and to make this information available for use company wide.

Where previously, stable organization schemes where rule, we nowadays see that the traditional standardization structures with positions ranging from divisional standardization officers up to and including documentalists and writers of production instructions are disappearing. This means that it becomes increasingly important to provide, for all the employees, direct access to information which was previously only department wide accessible through specialists. This information is in the present time only centrally available, caused by the reduction or cancellation of staff’s at department level by will of cost reductions.

Beside the above mentioned tasks leading to the availability of information, the central standardization department has gained, as a result of the omission of expertise at department level, at least three extra tasks. These are:

	help with the interpretation of standards (internal / external);
	help with the implementation of standards;
	co-ordination of activities to determine the point of view in matter of, for example, proposals for standards in the comment phase.

These tasks are enormously supported ..... ..... the purpose of standardization is to prevent / remove undesired variety of information, also during the collection, consulting and application of information. Information should not be dusted in archives, resulting in a situation that everybody is collecting facts by themselves. Information must stay in motion and should easily decentralized be consulted. Systems for Electronic Databases will help us in that task.

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