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BSI British Standards is a division of ''' BSI Group ''' which also includes ''' BSI Management Systems ''', a management systems registrar and ''' BSI Product Services ''', a testing organisation. '''British Standards''' is incorporated under a Royal Charter and is formally designated as the National Standards Body (NSB) for the UK. The standards produced are titled British Standard XXXX {Link without Title} :YYYY where XXXX is the number of the standard, P is the number of the part of the standard (where the standard is split into multiple parts) and YYYY is the year in which the standard came into effect. '''British Standards''' currently has over 27,000 active standards. Products are commonly specified as meeting a particular British Standard, and in general this can be done without any certification or independent testing. The standard simply provides a shorthand way of claiming that certain specifications are met, while encouraging manufacturers to adhere to a common method for such a specification. The Kitemark can be used to indicate certification by BSI, but only where a Kitemark scheme has been set up around a particular standard. It is mainly applicable to safety and quality management standards. There is a common misunderstanding that Kitemarks are necessary to prove compliance with any BS standard, but in general it is neither desirable nor possible that every standard be 'policed' in this way. BSI Group began in 1901 as the ''Engineering Standards Committee'', led by James Mansergh , to standardise the number and type of Steel sections, in order to make British manufacturers more efficient and competitive. Over time the standards developed to cover many aspects of tangible engineering, and then engineering methodologies including quality systems, safety and security. Another key activity carried out by British Standards is the CE Marking of Medical Devices. The CE 0086 marking can be issued to devices that are found to comply with the Medical Device Directive . EXAMPLES OF BRITISH STANDARDS district in London .]]
PUBLICLY AVAILABLE SPECIFICATIONS The BSI also publishes a series of Publicly Available Specification (PAS) documents. Unlike a regular British Standard, these are not the outcome of an (often lengthy) industry-wide consensus process, but have instead been sponsored by one or more companies. Examples
AVAILABILITY British Standards are sold by BSI Business Information {Link without Title} . They can also be ordered via the publishing units of many other national standards bodies ( ANSI , DIN , etc.) and from several specialized suppliers of technical specifications. Many British Standards (BS) – as well as some of the European and International Standards that were adopted as British Standards (BS EN, BS ISO) – are also available in public and university libraries in the United Kingdom, either on paper or online via a British Standards Online subscription. However, the BSI makes standards available to these libraries only under licence restrictions which forbid loan, inter-library loan, open-shelf access, and copying of more than 10% of a document by library users. The BSI library in Chiswick charges visiting members of the public a fee of £25 per half day although this is free to "members of the BSI, students & accredited journalists" [http://www.bsigroup.com/en/Standards-and-Publications/BSI-Library2/BSI-Library/Visits/]. SEE ALSO
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