Koninklijk Nederlands Normalisatie Instituut
Royal Netherlands Standardization Institute
Normcommissies op het gebied van Bouw
“The Destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide.
If you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys
throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees.”
College of the Ozarks: 2024 Revenue $116M
School of the Ozarks recently hosted its second Summer Teacher Training, welcoming 165 educators from across North America—up from 100 last year.
Read the full story: https://t.co/lJWuCneM5f#HardWorkU #SchooloftheOzarks #ClassicalChristianEducation pic.twitter.com/23FA7Rf1Ar
— College of the Ozarks (@CofOHardWorkU) July 25, 2025
Earl Grey Supreme Black Tea 6pk
“A work college since its inception in 1906, College of the Ozarks® Work Education Program provides over 130 unique work stations where students earn their education. Students do everything from mowing the grass to overseeing the campus fire station, and they produce some of the most delectable treats around. That’s what you’ll find here, a showcasing of College of the Ozarks students’ talents and trades – small-batch, handcrafted gifts and baked goods, including world-famous fruitcakes, delicious fruit spreads, and student-milled products.
When you choose our campus store and online gift shop, know that you’re supporting our students and that you’ve made a purchase with a purpose.”
This weekend, our agriculture department welcomed hundreds of FFA students from Missouri and Arkansas for hands-on learning through lectures and competitions. We’re proud to help train the next generation of agriculture! #HardWorkU pic.twitter.com/QKSARNtw0o
— College of the Ozarks (@CofOHardWorkU) March 3, 2025
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Public Input on the 2029 Edition will be received until January 6, 2027
“Wir haben Kunst, damit wir nicht
an der Wahrheit zugrunde gehen”
Not every student is passionate about Graph Algorithms, Green Policy or coding the Internet of Things but wants to devote their energy and talent to making the world a better place by making the world a more beautiful place. Spaces for the “creatives” among them are elevated risk spaces. Today we examine the literature for designing, building and maintaining these occupancies in the safest and most sustainable way; among them the spaces for textile research and fashion design; usually co-mingled with drawing, painting, and textile creation space.
The garment industry is multi-disciplinary and is larger than the energy industry. It contributes to the standard for civilization; even though subtly so. For this reason, starting 2023, we will break down our coverage of the literature that supports the fashion industry from the fine arts domain in separate colloquia every quarter.
Fine Arts 200. Exploration of best practice for spaces used for various forms of creative expression that are appreciated for their artistic or aesthetic value, often involving skills and techniques that require specialized training and expertise.
Fashion 300. Best practice literature for the spaces needed for the creation of artworks using textiles and fibers, such as weaving, quilting, or embroidery. Research and teaching spaces in this domain; at the foundation of the garment industry — one of the largest sectors in the economy in any nation — present surprising challenges
See our CALENDAR for a schedule of those session.
US-based standards developers with a footprint in the fine arts domain:
Committee D13 on Textiles Celebrates a Century
2021 International Building Code: Section 305 Educational Group E
Underwriters Laboratories
Lorem ipsum (product testing: kiln heat specifications, fabric and paint flammability, wet and dry fire extinguishing systems, etc.)
National Fire Protection Association
Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
Leveraging User-Provided Noisy Labels for Fashion Understanding
Institutional Guidelines
Federal Regulations & Recommendations
Environmental Health and Safety in the Arts Guide for K-12 School, Colleges and Artisans
Global standard developers: (partial list)
Open to everyone. Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
🌤️🌺⛲🌳 pic.twitter.com/bRL7eIY4gg
— Cranbrook Academy of Art (@cranbrookart) July 3, 2023
Public Input on the 2029 Edition will be received until January 6, 2027
Books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die
No man and no force can put thought in a concentration camp forever
— Franklin Roosevelt
Many education communities build and maintain cultural resource properties whose safety and sustainability objectives are informed by local adaptations of consensus products developed by the International Code Council (ICC) and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). We need to understand the ICC and NFPA product suites as a pair. For most real assets in the education industry they move “roughly” in tandem even though they are produced by different organizations for a different set of customers. Sometimes the out-of-step condition between NFPA and ICC permits subject matter experts on technical committees to make the best possible decisions regarding the safety and sustainability agenda of the interest group they represent; but not always.
Occupancy classification is always a first consideration and both the NFPA and the ICC have a claim to some part of this occupancy concept*. In the ICC suite we find code requirements for many “cultural places of worship” tracking in the following sections of the International Building Code (IBC):
Section 303 Assembly Group A-3
Section 305 Educational Group E
Section 308 Institutional Group I
Note that Sections 305 and 308 recognize the accessory and multi-functional nature of occupancy types in the education industry – i.e child care and adult care function can marge and be an accessory to a place of worship. The general rule in the IBC is that accessory religious educational rooms and religious auditoriums with occupant loads of less than 100 per room or space are not considered separate occupancies. Other standards developers are guided by this rule.
Close coupled to the IBC for this occupancy class is NFPA 909 Code for the Protection of Cultural Resource Properties – Museums, Libraries, and Places of Worship. From the document prospectus:
• This code describes principles and practices of protection for cultural resource properties (including, but not limited to, museums, libraries, and places of worship), their contents, and collections, against conditions or physical situations with the potential to cause damage or loss.
• This code covers ongoing operations and rehabilitation and acknowledges the need to preserve culturally significant and character-defining building features and sensitive, often irreplaceable, collections and to provide continuity of operations.
• Principles and practices for life safety in cultural resource properties are outside the scope of this code. Where this code includes provisions for maintaining means of egress and controlling occupant load, it is to facilitate the evacuation of items of cultural significance, allow access for damage limitation teams in an emergency, and prevent damage to collections through overcrowding or as an unintended consequence of an emergency evacuation.
• Library and museum collections that are privately owned and not open to the public shall not be required to meet the requirements of this code.
Since we are hard upon release of the 2021 Edition of NFPA 909 let us take a backward look at the current (2017) version of NFPA 909 Code for the Protection of Cultural Resource Properties – Museums, Libraries, and Places of Worship. Chapter 14 covers “Museums, Libraries and their Collections”. Chapter 15 covers “Places of Worship”
The 2025 Edition is now open for public input. Let us pick through proposals for the 2021 Edition to inform our approach to its improvement by referencing the technical committee transcripts linked below:
Public Input Report: January 12, 2023
N.B. We find committee response (accepted in principle) to Standards Michigan proposal to articulate conditions in which places of worship and libraries are used as community disaster relief support facilities. We consider this a modest “code win”.
Circling back to the ICC suite we find elevated interest in hardening community owned facilities to tornadoes, hurricane and floods and other storm related risk in the structural engineering chapters of the International Building Code.
Leadership and facility managers for enterprises of this type are encouraged to contribute obtain their own (free) NFPA public participation account in order to directly participate in the 2025 revision of NFPA 909 by logging in here: https://www.nfpa.org/login.
Public consultation on the First Draft of the 2025 Edition closes January 4, 2024.
This document is also a standing item on our periodic Prometheus, Lively and Fine Arts teleconference. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
Issue: [15-258]
Category: Fire Safety, Public Safety
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Josh Elvove, Joe DeRosier
*See NFPA 101 Life Safety Code
LEARN MORE:
Guidelines for the Security of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Other Special Collections, Association of College & Research Libraries, American Library Association, 50 East Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611-2795.
“A Legal Primer on Managing Museum Collections,” Malaro, Marie, second edition 1998
“Risk and Insurance Management Manual for Libraries,” Mary Breighner and William Payton, edited by Jeanne Drewes, ALA 2005 ISBN 0-8389-8325-1.
Wisconsin Historic Building Code, Madison, WI:Wisconsin Administrative Code.
Left Panel Of George Julian Zolnay’s Allegorical “Academic, Business & Manual Education” Granite Frieze At Francis L. Cardozo High School (Washington, DC)
All fifty United States have their own “signature” disaster with which to reckon; some more than others. California has earthquakes, Florida has hurricanes, Missouri has floods; and so on, Life and property loss are preventable; but losses will persist because technical solutions notwithstanding, culture determines human behavior. It is impossible to be alive and safe.
FM Global is one of several organizations that curate privately developed consensus products that set the standard of care for many industries; education communities among them. These standards contribute to the reduction in the risk of property loss due to fire, weather conditions, and failure of electrical or mechanical equipment. They incorporate nearly 200 years of property loss experience, research and engineering results, as well as input from consensus standards committees, equipment manufacturers and others.
If you want FMGlobal as your insurance carrier, or to supplement your organization’s self-insurance program, then you will likely be assigned an FMGlobal conformity professional.
A scan of its list data sheets indicate a number of noteworthy updates of documents establishing minimum requirements for safety technologies common in education facilities:
Technical Reports Supporting Code Change
Note that the bulk of the safety concepts in the foregoing titles incorporate by reference the safety concepts that cross our radar every day FM Global provides direct access to the full span of its documents at this link:
FM GLOBAL PROPERTY LOSS PREVENTION DATA SHEETS
Note FM Global updates its standards every three months:
To respond to calls for public consultation you will need to set up (free) access credentials.
We keep FMGlobal titles — and the literature of other property insurers involved in standards setting — on the standing agenda of our Risk, Snow and Prometheus colloquia. See our CALENDAR for the next meeting.
Issue: [Various]
Category: Risk, Facility Asset Management
More
Deloitte University: Innovation in Insurance
University of Pennsylvania demonstrates the critical importance of sprinklers in dormitories
Syracuse University presents an eclectic mix of risk management challenges
Representative force majeure clauses.
Example 1: Basic Force Majeure Clause
“Neither party shall be liable for any failure or delay in performance of its obligations under this agreement due to events beyond its reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, war, terrorism, civil commotion, labor strikes, and natural disasters. The affected party shall promptly notify the other party of the force majeure event and take reasonable steps to mitigate its impact on performance. During the continuance of such events, the obligations of the affected party shall be suspended, and the time for performance shall be extended.”
Example 2: Detailed Force Majeure Clause
“In the event that either party is unable to perform its obligations under this agreement due to a force majeure event, the affected party shall promptly notify the other party in writing, specifying the nature and anticipated duration of the force majeure event. Force majeure events shall include, but are not limited to, acts of God, strikes, lockouts, government action or inaction, war, terrorism, epidemics, and natural disasters. The affected party shall use reasonable efforts to overcome or mitigate the effects of the force majeure event. If the force majeure event continues for a period of [specified duration], either party may terminate this agreement by providing written notice to the other party.”
“We have art in order not to perish from the Truth”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
We occasionally break from our focus on the technology and management of these “cities-within-cities” and dwell briefly on the primary business of the academy. Academic museums and galleries provide a setting for conveying inherited wisdom to the next generation of cultural leaders. We include in this gallery examples of architectural art of the buildings themselves. Click on images for more artist and location credit. Technical information about safety and sustainability of this facility class appears at the bottom of this page.
University of Virginia Museum of Art | “The Natural Bridge, Virginia” | Frederic Edwin Church (1852)
Bowdoin College Museum of Art | View on the Hudson | George Inness
Harvard University | In the Sierras, Lake Tahoe (Albert Bierstadt)
University of Minnesota Art Museum
LEARN MORE:
Austrian Standards International
During the construction of the new “Christine Nöstlinger Education Campus,” great care was taken to not only make the site accessible to schoolchildren and students, but also to involve the entire neighborhood in its use. We spoke with Rudolf Leber from MA 56 about how standards specifically contribute to making the outdoor facilities safe and robust.
Key points about how Austria cares for its children in kindergarten, based on its early childhood education system:
Compulsory Kindergarten Year: Since 2009, Austria has mandated a free, compulsory kindergarten year for all children who turn five by August 31, requiring at least 20 hours of attendance per week over four days. This ensures early education access and prepares children for primary school.
Variety of Kindergarten Options: Austria offers diverse kindergarten types—public (free, government-subsidized), private (partially subsidized, costing around €250/month), parent-run (costing about €100/month with parental involvement), and company-run
(Betriebskindergarten)—catering to different family needs and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Focus on Development: Kindergartens aim to support physical, mental, and emotional growth through play-based learning and group interaction, complementing family care. The Nationwide Framework Curriculum emphasizes holistic development without formal school-like instruction.
Accessibility and Subsidies: Public kindergartens are free, though parents may pay for meals (around €60/month), while private options remain affordable due to government subsidies. Many facilities operate long hours (e.g., 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.) to accommodate working parents.
Decentralized Governance with Quality Standards: The nine federal provinces oversee kindergarten legislation and operations, allowing regional flexibility, while national agreements (e.g., 15a B-VG) and frameworks ensure quality, such as trained pedagogues and reasonable child-staff ratios (e.g., max 25 children per teacher in public settings).
ISO 23659:2023 – Sports and Recreational Facilities — Trampoline Parks — Safety Requirements
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwB pic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
— USPTO (@uspto) July 13, 2023
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