Technical standards are formal documents meant to establish specifications and procedures that maximize the efficiency, safety, and effectiveness of products, production methods, and services. They're intended, in a sense, to get everyone "on the same page" in regards to how products, methods, and services can best be developed.
A standard usually includes definition of terms, classification of components, descriptions of procedures, specification of dimensions, design, materials, operation, and performance, quality measurements, testing and sample methods, and descriptions, of size, fit, and strength, as appropriate.
Standards are produced by a wide array of organizations, including corporations, professional associations, regulatory bodies, and government agencies around the world. Many standards are developed by Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs), whose sole purpose are to produce, maintain, and update technical standards and related documents.
Many standards come with a high price tag. This is often because they are so costly for standards developing organizations to develop and maintain. People who purchase standards are supporting the process that developed the standard, which is a very important process! However, there are also many standards that are available openly online in connection with government agencies and nonprofit organizations, if you know where to look.
We maintain subscriptions to ASTM Standards and IEEE Standards, two large databases of normally proprietary standards and technical documents which together cover a wide area of the most widely used documents in engineering, manufacturing, and computing. We are also sometimes able to borrow standards via Interlibrary Loan, but not always, due to copyright restrictions and expenses. If your ILL request is rejected, you'll be contacted directly by the staff, who will connect you with the Engineering Librarian so that we can look for alternatives.