The Information Industry Association (IIA) was a U.S. trade association for companies across the information business, including organizations that created, managed, and distributed information products and services. Founded in 1968, it merged with the Software Publishers Association in 1999 to form the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA); the IIA is not a separate current association.
What did the Information Industry Association represent?
The IIA brought together companies involved in information products, services, and related technologies. Its scope was broader than conventional publishing: member businesses worked in creating, distributing, and using information, as well as the technologies that supported those activities. In a 1992 statement, the association described 650 member information companies spanning those roles (1992 statement).
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In a 1998 congressional submission, the IIA described itself as a 29-year-old trade association representing all sectors of the information industry. It said its public-policy focus was to foster the continued availability of high-quality, timely, and reliable information products and services (1998 congressional statement).
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The Association for Information Science and Technology’s chronology lists the IIA as founded in 1968 by Eugene Garfield, Saul Herner, and others (ASIS&T chronology).
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In 1998, IIA members approved a merger with the Software Publishers Association (SPA). The merger took effect on January 1, 1999, creating the Software & Information Industry Association. A U.S. House hearing record also identifies SIIA as the result of the SPA–IIA merger (House hearing record).
Is the Information Industry Association still active?
Not as a separate organization under that name. The historical IIA merged into SIIA in 1999. SIIA is the current organization using the combined name and describes its member ecosystem as including software, information services, specialized media, financial information, education, and emerging technologies that depend on creating, using, and disseminating data and information (SIIA about page).
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SIIA says it promotes common interests, protects member intellectual property, and informs the industry and public about relevant trends, technologies, and policy (SIIA organization description). These are descriptions of the present-day successor, not a reason to treat the former IIA and current SIIA as interchangeable in every historical context.
How should historical membership figures be read?
Published counts refer to different years and organizational scopes, so they should not be read as a direct membership trend.
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| Figure | Source and date | What it describes |
|---|---|---|
| 650 information companies | IIA testimony, 1992 | Companies involved in creating, distributing, and using information products, services, and technologies (1992 statement). |
| 550 member companies | IIA, 1998 | The IIA’s membership before the merger (1998 congressional statement). |
| More than 1,500 software-code and information-content provider companies represented | Information Today, 1999 | The newly formed SIIA, not the pre-merger IIA (Information Today, 1999). |
The 1999 figure concerns the combined successor and uses a different description of the organizations represented. It therefore cannot be compared directly with either earlier IIA count.
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