Inforterm

Infoterm, the International Information Centre for Terminology, was founded

in 1971 by contract with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO), with the objective to support and co-ordinate
international co-operation in the field of terminology.
Members are international, regional or national terminology institutions,
organizations and networks, as well as specialized public or semi-public or other
non-profit institutions engaged in terminological activities. Members are drawn from
Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe.
Individual members are subdivided into 3 main groups:
1. Special members
2.Accepted members
3.Sponsors
-special members are members of Infoterm General Assembly IGA (the task and
activities are defined by IGA) who can also be appointed to the Infoterm Executive
Board IEB
-another member of Infoterm are famous organizations for strandardization
Aim:
-To promote and support collaboration in the field of terminology
-To secure collaboration on international level
-To spread information about terminological activities and to secure collaboration
of the experts from the field of terminology
Main areas of actions are:

fostering cooperation among terminology institutions, organizations and networks

terminology policies and strategies

legal aspects of terminological data, especially copyright

theoretical and methodological aspects of structured content

terminological standardization of principles, methods and applications

Services of Infoterm:
- provides services to university students, translators, interpreters, managers, and
others
- it has helped with establishing of many terminological institutions around the
world, organized conferences with the issue of terminology
- it collaborates with ISO from 1989 to create and impellent international standards
- it has an important role within ISO as International Thesaurus Information Centre
-EAF- The European Association for Terminology- non-profit professional org.
Which unites experts from the field of terminology in Europe

- it provides information for professionals and for public about issue of terminology
and terminological work, organizes conferences to study terminology
-It is designed to further plurilingualism through terminology, to provide a
European platform for promoting and professionalizing terminological activities and
improving awareness of them, and to cooperate actively with other relevant
organizations, associations and institutions at all levels.

HISTORICAL OUTLINE
In 1949, after having published a report on International Scientific and
Technical Dictionaries, UNESCO proposed that an International
Terminology Bureau be founded under the common control of UNESCO
and ISO. In the following years, this project appeared repeatedly on the agenda
of the General Conferences of UNESCO without achieving any progress as to its
implementation.
After the Second Congress of the International Federation of Translators
(FIT) in Rome in 1956, FIT also started discussions on the possibility of
establishing an international centre for scientific and technical
terminology. Following resolution 2 of that Congress, the FIT Council was
asked to take appropriate measures towards the creation of such a centre in
co-operation with UNESCO.
Finally, the General Conference of UNESCO adopted at session in 1964 the
project for establishing an International Committee for the Co-ordination
of Terminological Activities (ICCTA) dedicated among other tasks to the
recording of scientific literature, including dictionaries and thesauri,
from all over the world.
In addition, the Council of Europe showed interest in the co-ordination of
terminology training and contacted Eugen Wster on that matter. All these
more or less concerted efforts finally led to the establishment of Infoterm. In
autumn 1971, Infoterm was officially founded in Vienna, Austria, by
contract with UNESCO and the ON put in charge of its implementation. In
1973, the Federal Ministry for Construction and Technology (todays Federal

Ministry of Economy and Labour) signed an agreement with the Austrian

Economic Chamber (todays Austrian Federal Economic Chamber WKO)
regarding the funding of Infoterm. UNESCO provided some project money and
even more important acted as a protector of the new entity which was fixed in a
contract between UNESCO and the ON.
When Infoterm was founded in 1971 as an international information centre,
its functions hardly exceeded the mere collection of information. At the First
Infoterm Symposium in 1975 it was, therefore, decided to collaborate with
different terminological institutions around the world.
In 1996 turned to the non-profit organization.
Infoterm initiated the EU project Proposals for an Operational
Infrastructure for Terminology in Europe (POINTER) .
In 2002 conference in Finland supported all the terminological centres around
the world also in East Asia, China, Mongolia, Japan, Korea.
Infoterm activity is closely connected to the creation of international valid
terminological standards. Among the most famous belong:
ISO/TC 37 Terminology and other language resources
ISO/TC 46 Information and documentation
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC1 Terminology of Information Technology 8
ISO/TC 154 Graphical symbols