About CENDI — History
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CENDI traces its roots to the Committee on Scientific and Technical Information (COSATI) of the Federal Council on Science and Technology. COSATI was established in the early 1960s to coordinate the management of the results from the U.S. government's increasing commitment to scientific research and technology development. The scientific and technical information (STI) managers of the government's major research and development (R&D) agencies worked within COSATI to standardize guidelines for cataloging and indexing technical reports. COSATI ceased formal operations in the early 1970s.
To continue the cooperation begun under COSATI, managers of agency STI
programs from Commerce (National Technical Information Service), Energy
(Office of Scientific and Technical Information), NASA (HQ/STI Division),
and Defense (Defense Technical Information Center) began meeting periodically
to discuss common topics and stimulate more effective cooperation. In
1985, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the four charter agencies and CENDI (the Commerce, Energy, NASA, Defense Information Managers
Group) was established. From this small core of STI managers, CENDI has grown to its current membership, which represents the major science agencies, the national libraries, and agencies involved in the dissemination and long-term management of scientific and technical information.
