Stan,

The practice that I notice most in “Standardization News (SN)” is the *almost 
total absence* of units of measurement of any kind, absence of SI Units and 
absence of units from outside the SI as well, except in some of the paid 
adverting in SN which does seems to favor metric units.

In the hundreds of ASTM Standards, themselves, it may be true that they “adhere 
best to the metric units commitment", but that is not evident is SN.
Even still as a member of ASTM-Committee 43 on SI, I do continue to receive 
complimentary copies of SN, but, unfortunately, we do not have unrestricted 
access to the ASTM library of standards to observe the extent of adoption of 
SI.  What is your count of standards in SI vs. those written outside the SI?

Gene Mechtly.



On Jan 6, 2015, at 9:14 AM, Stanislav Jakuba 
<jakub...@gmail.com<mailto:jakub...@gmail.com>> wrote:

ASTM International, known until 2001 as the American Society for Testing and 
Materials (ASTM), is an international standards 
organization<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standards_organization> that develops 
and publishes voluntary consensus technical 
standards<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_standard> for a wide range 
of materials, products, systems, and 
services<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_(economics)>. The organization is 
headquarters is in West Conshohocken, 
PA<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Conshohocken,_Pennsylvania>.
ASTM, founded in 1898 as the American Section of the International Association 
for Testing and Materials, predates other standards organizations such as 
BSI<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Standards> (1901), 
DIN<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Institut_f%C3%BCr_Normung> (1917), 
ANSI<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_National_Standards_Institute> (1918) 
and 
AFNOR<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_Fran%C3%A7aise_de_Normalisation> 
(1926).
That much Wikipedia. For us it is important to know that ASTM is the U.S. 
standards developing organization (unlike ANSI) and one of the largest, and 
that it adheres best to the metric units commitment. The reason that I write 
about it now is that I noticed a deviation from their policy of "metric units 
first."
For a while the flagship publication, the Standardization News, published data 
with units in the reversed order. Contacting ASTM, I was informed that it was a 
mistake and that "we will do that, except for quotations or a special case (I 
think sieves is one)."
A good news for 2015.
Stan Jakuba

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