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STEM - General Research Guide: Find Technical Standards

A standard is a document, established by consensus and approved by a recognized body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context. By virtue of their status as standards, their public availability and their amendment or revision as necessary to keep pace with the state of the art, international, regional, national and provincial standards are presumed to constitute acknowledged rules of technology. (ISO/IEC)

The Library has full text access to three major collections of standards. Other organizations may provide some or all of their standards at no charge, while others like ISO make most of theirs available only via purchase. We can try to get copies of standards via interlibrary loan, and you can each out to your librarian to recommended we buy a print copy of the standard for the collection..

ASTM's Digital Library via ASTM Compass includes access to all ASTM standards (plus a few ISO and UOP standards), as well as their journals and symposia papers. Search by keyword or designation, or browse by topic/sub-topic.  Do not use the regular www.astm.org website or Google to search for your standard, as you may be prompted to pay.

Through IEEE Xplore, you can search and retrieve the IEEE standards, along with selected AIEE and ANSI standards related to electrical & computer engineering.

Start with the Standards link in the left column on the IEEE site. You can search or browse by number or keyword/topic.

You can browse and search the full collection of ASME standards, including the Boiler Pressure Vessel Code. At the ASME Standards website, click the link for institutional access.
You can search and retrieve thousands of SAE aerospace and ground vehicle standards, and aerospace materials specifications on SAE Mobilus