Past terminological work in technical fields was usually concerned with the provision of a reference assist only to a small, defined community, and the products of that work- dictionaries, glossaries, and occasionally thesauri-were exclusively in print form. Several current trends put increased emphasis on terminological standardization and on the use of computer-based techniques for building and using terminological tools. Among these current trends are: 1. Broadened technical scope of terminological documents and their user populations. 2. An increased interest in computerized databases and the terminological challenges implicit in this development. 3. Increasing interest in computer-based “knowledge representation” and its implications for developing term and concept relationships and machine procedures for providing “meaning.”

These trends have encouraged terminological standardization by ever-broader consensus groups, international interest in terminological work, and increasing appreciation of the importance of terminological activity as a part of standards development. Illustrations of these trends as they relate to the materials data field and ASTM are presented.