Protracted and, sometimes, fruitless searches for government-applied technical standards may soon be a thing of the past. A new website, Standards.gov, will provides businesses, organizations and interested citizens with a direct portal to sources of information on the thousands of specifications that government agencies reference in regulations or use to guide their purchasing decisions.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently launched the new site to further the government's progress in using private-sector standards in lieu of agency-unique specifications, whenever practical. As a part of the Department of Commerce, NIST leads and coordinates federal, state and local government efforts to increase use of voluntary consensus standards over in-house, proprietary standards. Visit standards.gov.