Document Center Inc. is an information distributor based in Silicon Valley. Selling standards since 1982 and on the web since 1993, Document Center Inc. is a leader in the dissemination of conformance information for business. Document Center offers out-sourced management services for standards collections for ISO-9000 and FDA compliance, as well as individual document sales. It is among the top 3% of women-owned businesses in the U.S.
Document Center was started in 1982 by John Cascante and his son, Gilbert. The company provided Silicon Valley companies with copies of Military specifications and standards on a same day basis. In January 1985, Claudia Bach took over the company and turned it from a garage-based business into an internationally known and respected distributor of the complete spectrum of Standards and conformance information.
The company pioneered the use of the Internet, and particularly the web, for the distribution of standards and standards information. With it’s first website (www.doccenter.com) in 1993, the company influenced information organizations as diverse as Dialog and Information Express to Standards bodies such as ISO (the International Standards Organization) and ANSI (the American National Standards Institute).
The site was the first to make use of the Mosaic browser and the WAIS search engine to provide an interactive catalog of information products for sale. Marc Andreessen highlighted the site on the NCSA “What’s New” page in October 1993. “Document Center is a hard copy document delivery service specializing in government and industry specifications and standards. Document Center has the complete Department of Defense (DoD) Index of Specifications and Standards collection available, as well as the complete collection of the American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM). The Center also has additional industry (ANSI, SAE, IPC, IEEE, EIA) and government (NASA, DLA, FAA) documentation at its Silicon Valley location. Note from Marc: this is a great technology demo of advanced Mosaic/WAIS features, including Mosaic 2.0’s fill-out forms — check it out!”
The Ziff Davis publication PC Computing magazine included Document Center as one of the approximately 400 sites on it’s “Road Map to the Internet” in September, 1994. Forbes magazine highlighted the company in it’s February 27, 1995 ASAP supplement as one of “three companies with stakes in the Net biz game…” They quoted, “Claudia Bach …says she would have had to be ‘brain-dead’ not to put her company on the World Wide Web.”
Document Center Inc. currently monitors over 400,000 standards from all disciplines and jurisdictions. Especially known for it’s strength in the Medical Devices industry, the company has thousands of customers who depend on it’s notification services to keep their standards collections up-to-date. Staff members also audit standards collections on a regular basis to confirm that customers will pass their conformance reviews with flying colors.
In addition, Document Center offers custom reports for customers to compare past purchases with current editions of the standards they’ve gotten from the company.
Standards can be purchased in both paper and electronic format from the company website www.document-center.com, or by phoning the company at 650-591-7600 or by fax at 650-591-7617. Other services are available upon request. Send us comments or questions at our email address: info@document-center.com.