Addison, TX and Baltimore, MD -- March 2023. Amigos Library Services and the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) have announced a consortium agreement to provide NISO Library Standards Alliance (LSA) membership to all Amigos members.
The agreement will provide over 500 Amigos member libraries with full LSA membership benefits, including free access to NISO's educational webinar program, unlimited participation in NISO Working Groups/Standing Committees, and discounted registration for all non-webinar events, including the annual NISO Plus conference.
Amigos also joins NISO as a Voting Member, which gives the lead consortium organization the opportunity to influence the direction of technological advances in information management through driving standards and best practice in the information community. As a Voting Member, Amigos may comment and vote on proposed standards and recommended practice projects as well as vote in NISO Board elections.
"This NISO partnership helps expand some of the key benefits of membership in Amigos, including access to continuing education and collective action on issues of importance to libraries' futures," noted Miguel Figueroa, President and CEO of Amigos Library Services. "We look forward to our member libraries' leadership and engagement with NISO."
"We are excited to welcome Amigos Library Services, one of the largest library consortia in the US, to the NISO community," says NISO Executive Director Todd Carpenter. "Their history as a member-led organization specializing in cooperation and resource sharing is well aligned with NISO's mission of collaborating to advance standards and best practices. Amigos' many member institutions will also add to the diverse range of libraries represented in our programs and committees."
For more information about this announcement, please contact membership@amigos.org or nisohq@niso.org.
About Amigos Library Services
Amigos is one of the largest consortia of libraries and cultural heritage institutions in the United States. For more than 40 years, Amigos members have collaborated to obtain affordable services and shared library resources and knowledge. Through membership in Amigos, libraries collectively gain access to the latest innovations and services in the library community; pursue opportunities for continuing professional education; and leverage their buying power. Collaboration strengthens each member's ability to serve and lead its community in the creative and effective use of information resources. www.amigos.org.
About NISO
Based in Baltimore, MD, NISO's mission is to build knowledge, foster discussion, and advance authoritative standards development through collaboration among the cultural, scholarly, scientific, and professional communities. To fulfill this mission, NISO engages with libraries, publishers, information aggregators, and other organizations that support learning, research, and scholarship through the creation, organization, management, and curation of knowledge. NISO works with intersecting communities of interest and across the entire lifecycle of information standards. NISO is a nonprofit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). niso.org