[LINK] Free access to Australian standards no longer available in public libraries

[JanW]

At 03:58 PM 7/06/2016, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>"Increasingly legislation refers to standards, rather than spelling out
>legal requirements. All that says the community needs to have access to
>standards."
>
>The publishing agreement with SAI Global ends in 2018, with an option to
>renew for a further five year term; however, Dr Byrne said the NSLA was
>attempting to negotiate an alternative publishing arrangement with
>Standards Australia. 

SAI Global has been a problem for a long time. I used to attend standards development panels, then I figured out they just wanted free consulting. They wouldn't even give contributors a copy of the standard they helped develop. I call that theft. But instead of calling them on it, I quit giving freebies.

There are ways to get free pirate copies, which is a hole they backed themselves into. It's funny that I was just advised about this in a completely different context. Did you know ISO standards are sold in hard copy on Amazon now? You can buy a  PDF from ANSI or a hard copy from Amazon for about $20US above the PDF price. The one I was looking at was $173US from ANSI.

If SA has any sense, they will rethink this stupid policy or take it back in house. You canNOT hold people accountable for things they can't get without being held to ransome for it. A consume has NO way of knowing if a company is meeting standards. This rort has to stop.

/rant
Jan


I write books. http://janwhitaker.com/?page_id=8

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
Twitter: <https://twitter.com/JL_Whitaker>JL_Whitaker
Blog: www.janwhitaker.com 

Some psychopaths become serial killers, and other psychopaths become prosecutors. - Bob Ruff, Truth and Justice, June 2016

Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space. 
~Margaret Atwood, writer 

_ __________________ _