Skip to content

NIST

National Institute of Standards and Technology

NIST is a physical sciences laboratory and a non-regulatory agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. NIST was the first organization to adopt a multi-style, round-trippable PubID scheme with four defined rendering styles (full, abbreviated, short, machine-readable). The NIST PubID covers 19,333+ documents dating from 1901.

pubid-rubyv2.0.0·rt-new-lutaml-model·2026-05-04
NationalSyntax NIST identifiers use publisher abbreviations (NIST, NBS for pre-1988 documents) followed by a type abbreviation and number. NIST PubID defines four rendering styles: Full (Long), Abbreviated, Short, and Machine-Readable (MR). The MR style uses dot-separated fields and serves as the DOI suffix. Website
19
Doc Types
12
Components
4
Relations
4
Stages

Components 12

Structured elements that make up a NIST identifier:

Publisher
Enumeration

NIST (post-1988) or NBS (pre-1988)

NISTNBS
NBS for pre-1988 documents.
e.g.NIST
Document Type
Enumeration

SP, FIPS, IR, TN, HB, etc.

SPFIPSIRTNHBCIRCMONORPT +10 more
e.g.SP
Number
String

The document number

1–6 digits. May include dash-separated sub-numbers (e.g., 800-53).
e.g.800-53
Part
String

Part or volume number

Optional. Appended after number with dash.
e.g.3
:part
Revision
String

Revision number (Rev. 5)

Optional. Prefixed with "Rev."
e.g.Rev. 5
:revision
Version
String

Version number

Optional. Prefixed with "v".
e.g.v1.0
:version
Edition
String

Edition number

Optional.
e.g.1
:edition
Stage
Enumeration

Publication stage (draft, final)

draftfinalwithdrawn
Optional. In parentheses.
e.g.Draft
:stage
Supplement
String

Supplement indicator

Optional. Prefixed with "Suppl."
e.g.Suppl. 1
:supplement
Translation
Enumeration

Translation indicator

tr
Optional.
e.g.tr
:translation
Update
Integer

Update number

Optional. Prefixed with "Upd."
e.g.1
:update
Volume
Integer

Volume number

Optional. Prefixed with "Vol."
e.g.3
:volume

Rendering Styles 4

NIST PubIDs can be rendered in multiple styles from a single set of data elements. All styles are fully interchangeable without information loss.

Full (Long)
full

Used in title page and bibliography

National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-53A
Abbreviated
abbrev

Used in the Authority section

Natl. Inst. Stand. Technol. Spec. Publ. 800-53A
Short
short

Used for inline citations

NIST SP 800-53A
Machine-Readable
mr

Used for DOI suffix and machine interchange

NIST.SP.800-53A

PubID Algebra 4

Relationships between NIST identifiers:

RelationDescriptionSyntaxExample
RevisionRevision of an existing documentNIST SP [Number] Rev. [N]NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5
Part/VolumeMulti-part or multi-volume documentNIST [Type] [Number]-[Part] Vol. [N]NIST IR 8011 Vol. 3
DraftDraft version of a documentNIST [Type] [Number] (Draft)NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 (Draft)
SupplementSupplement to a base documentNIST [Type] [Number] Suppl. [N]NIST SP 800-53 Suppl. 1

Development Stages 4

Lifecycle stages for NIST documents:

CodeAbbrName
10.00WDWork-in-Progress Draft
30.00PRDPreliminary Draft
40.00PDPublic Draft
60.00FinalFinal Publication

An open source project of Ribose