EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE:             NIST 94-45
Dec. 7, 1994 2 P.M. EST

Contact:  Anne Enright Shepherd    NIST STANDARD TO IMPROVE
          (301) 975-4858           ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT
                                   INFORMATION


     The Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards
and Technology announced today the approval of a federal
information processing standard that will help make data on
computer systems in many government agencies more readily
available to the public.

     The Application Profile for the Government Information
Locator Service was approved as Federal Information Processing
Standard 192 to create a uniform technical approach to providing
information locator services to the public.

     The standard is critical in implementing the Government
Information Locator Service, or GILS, a decentralized collection
of computer servers and associated information services that will
be used by the public, either directly or through intermediaries,
to find public information throughout the federal government.
Other major steps toward creating GILS announced today by the
Clinton Administration include an Office of Management and Budget
Bulletin that sets out implementation goals and timetables for
federal agencies.

     The application profile for GILS addresses some of the
interactions between computer systems, enabling users of client
software to interconnect with GILS-compliant servers containing
accessible public information.  The profile is expected to be
implemented in commercial off-the-shelf products that will expand
choices for federal agencies and improve information retrieval
for users.

     This application profile is based primarily on a voluntary
industry standard, the American National Standard for Information
Retrieval, Application Service Definition and Protocol
Specification for Open Systems Interconnection (ANSI/NISO 
Z39.50), developed by the National Information Standards
Organization.  A group of industry and government experts led by
the Department of the Interior's U.S. Geological Survey adapted
the technology for use in government systems.

     As a non-regulatory agency of the Commerce Department's
Technology Administration, NIST promotes U.S. economic growth by
working with industry to develop and apply technology,
measurements and standards.

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Note to Editors: For further technical information, contact 
Eliot Christian, U.S. Geological Survey, (703) 648-7245, 
fax: (703) 648-7069, e-mail: echristi@usgs.gov.