The longstanding standard used to maintain physical standards of printed elementary and secondary instructional materials now available to all.

Ormond Beach, Fla. – The Book Manufacturers’ Institute (BMI), has announced that the Manufacturing Standards and Specifications for Textbooks (MSST), used to maintain appropriate physical standards of quality and performance for printed elementary and secondary instructional materials, is now available as a free downloadable PDF at www.bmibook.com. The standard was previously only available for purchase as a printed document.

For years, the MSST was maintained by the Advisory Committee on Textbook Standards (ACTS). ACTS was comprised of members from BMI, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the State Instructional Materials Review Association (SIMRA). In December of 2019, ACTS dissolved as a separate standalone organization and became a committee under BMI. The committee continues to have members from all three organizations and will maintain the standards in the same way as before. This change in structure allowed for fewer expenses and, therefore, more opportunity to distribute the standards more broadly.

Executive Director of BMI Matt Baehr said, “BMI has been involved in creating standards around textbooks for over 70 years. We are excited to be part of the next chapter of the MSST and this new structure allows us to provide this much-needed document to a wider audience without making them worry about their budgets.”

More on the MSST can be found at https://bomi.memberclicks.net/msst.