The National Library of Medicine adopted PILOT as its primary computer language for the dissemination and exchange of computer-based instructional materials in the health sciences, and used it for instructing medical librarians in using MEDLINE. Starkweather chaired a working group for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers from 1987 through 1991 that established standards for PILOT. The language was in active use for many years. However, the introduction of microcomputers also attracted capital to a budding software industry, and this ended the early period when most non-business software was created in universities; Starkweather thereafter turned his energy to administration.