National Institute of Standards and Technology

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) (Gaithersburg, MD), formerly the National Bureau of Standards, is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce's Technology Administration. NIST works with industry to develop and apply technology, measurements, and standards. It carries out this mission through a portfolio of four major programs: Measurements and Standards Laboratories, Advanced Technology Program, Manufacturing Extension Partnership, and Baldrige National Quality Award.

The Building and Fire Research Laboratory (BFRL), one of NIST's Measurement and Standards Laboratories, is responsible for acquiring information relevant to the needs of fire protection personnel around the world and for disseminating such information in print and by electronic means, including over the Internet.

The Laboratory manages the Fire Research Information Services (FRIS), which acts as a resource to both the Laboratory staff and fire protection engineers, scientists, and fire service personnel around the world. The key information resource behind FRIS is an online bibliographic database called FIREDOC that contains 70,000 items of information on published reports, journal articles, conference proceedings, books, audio-visual items, and other materials. Each reference has complete bibliographic information, including the title, author, journal, book, or conference identification, keywords, identifiers, and abstract, if available.

The Laboratory also operates a bulletin board that includes valuable software tools, such as for predicting the effect of fires on the environment, and it annually creates a CD-ROM containing the full text of the publications of the Laboratory staff.

URL: http://www.bfrl.nist.gov/bfrlris