Standards: Finding Standards

AASHTO Standards (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials)
Some of the major AASHTO publications which include standards are Standard Specifications for Transportation Materials and Methods of Sampling and Testing, Standard Specifications for Highway Bridges, and Guide Specifications for Highway Construction. Other AASHTO standards can be identified with the Standards Search Engines or through the AASHTO online bookstore at http://www.transportation.org/

ACI Standards (American Concrete Institute)
The ACI Manual of Concrete Practice includes ACI concrete and masonry code requirements, specifications, guides and reports.

AHRI Standards (Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute)
These are free on the AHRI website at: http://www.ahrinet.org/standards.aspx

ANSI
Check Google. Some industry standards are available free on the web. Very few ANSI standards are available this way, but you may get lucky. Consider wehter or not an equivalent standard would be acceptable for your particular need.

ASME Standards (American Society of Mechanical Engineers)
A searchable index of ASME standards is available at the society’s website.

British Standards
Some British standards are also issued/adopted by ISO or ANSI. Check the databases under the Search Engines tab to see if a similar standard is available from ANSI or ISO.

Building Codes - see ICC (International Code Council)

Federal Government Standards
The General Services Administration is charged with the responsibility for preparing standards, often called government specifications, government specs, or government standards, for common items used by U. S. Government agencies. Some of these standards can also be located online through the DoD web page or the Index of Federal Specifications and Standards.

Federal Regulations
Federal regulations are available through the World Wide Web at the following address: http://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/gpo45906

IEEE Standards (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
Many of the IEEE standards, though not all, have been adopted by the American National Standards Institute, e.g., the National Electrical Safety Code, ANSI C2. ANSI/IEEE standards and other IEEE standards can also be identified and accessed in full text through IEEE Xplore.

ITU Standards (International Telecommunications Union)
The website has a standards page with a search feature. Many are available free.

Military Standards
An electronic index to more than 100,000 specifications and standards, many linked in full text for free, is available at: https://www.dsp.dla.mil/Specs-Standards/. In addition, Index of Specifications and Standards--Department of Defense, or DODISS, is an index to all specifications and standards adopted by the Department of Defense. Part I is a numerical Listing; Part II is an alphabetical listing; Part III consists of the Federal Supply Classification Listing, and Part IV consists of a listing of canceled standards. Military standards that are not available for free can be acquired for a nominal fee from the Department of Defense Single Stock Point: DODSSP, Building 4/Section D, 700 Robbins Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19111 (215-697-2179).

National Aerospace Standards (Aerospace Industries Association)
Developed and updated by the National Aerospace Standards Committee of the AIA, the National Aerospace Standards (TL671.1 N36x 1900z, General Collection) and Metric National Aerospace Standards (TL521 N37x 1978, General Collection) include many standards on precision fasteners as well as other aerospace hardware. Also searchable online via the AIA website or Global IHS.

National Bureau of Standards (NBS)
NBS is the former name of NIST. NBS publications are in the process of being digitized and made freely available in full-text through TRAIL (Technical Report Archive & Image Library). For newer standards - see NIST Standards.

NISO Standards (National Information Standards Organization)
NISO "identifies, develops, maintains, and publishes technical standards to manage information in our changing and ever more digital environment." NISO standards such as Z39.50 are available as ANSI standards and current NISO standards are also in full text online format at: https://www.niso.org/publications/standards.

NIST Standards (National Institute of Standards and Technology, formerly the National Bureau of Standards)
The NIST Standards page can be found at: https://www.nist.gov/standardsgov. The site contains some full text standards.

OSHA Standards (Occupational Safety and Health Administration)
An electronic version of the standards with a searchable index is available at: http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owasrch.search_form?p_doc_type=standards&p_toc_level=0

SAE Standards (Society of Automotive Engineers)
SAE groups its standards into three sections: Ground Vehicle Standards, Aerospace Standards, and Aerospace Material Specifications. Descriptions of individual SAE standards are available through subject groupings at the society’s website: http://www.sae.org/standards/.

Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineeers
Standards for this society are freely available on the web at http://www.scte.org/standards/ in PDF format.

Standard Specifications for Construction of Roads and Bridges on Federal Highway Projects
These specifications (TE180 U65, General Collection) are published by the Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation. The most recent edition is also online at https://flh.fhwa.dot.gov/resources/specs/

UL = Underwriters Laboratories

They are most widely known for standards in electrical products. E.g., every light bulb, lamp, or outlet purchased in the U.S. usually has a UL symbol and says UL Listed. In point of fact, they issue a much wider range of standards - all related to product safety for consumers. For more information on the UL standards development process, and in-depth information on their standards, visit the UL Standards website.

W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
W3C contributes to efforts to standardize Web technologies by producing specifications (called "Recommendations") that describe the building blocks of the Web, such as HTML and XML. W3C makes these recommendations and other technical reports freely available through http://www.w3.org/standards/.