Literary warrant can be defined as the use of topics in existing publications to justify inclusion of topics in a controlled vocabulary. In the case of BISAC, the inclusion of new headings should fulfill an additional requirement: the existence of at least unique titles from different publishers.
The reason for this is most likely to avoid the monopolization of the creation of new headings by a strong organization specialized in a specific subject, also passing on responsibility to the "market. In this vein, it can be said that BISAC not only follows a market warrant, but the American market warrant, as it is the particular view and interests of the American book industry both publishers and buyers that is reflected on the system.
In addition, they also have a "Statement of Faith" that cannot be in conflict with their interests: "The content produced by ECPA's publishing members must not conflict with the Association's Statement of Faith. The Statement of Faith of the Association is as follows: I. We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.
We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory Concerning the inactivation of codes with each new release, this aspect was explained by the BISG b as follows: "Codes were inactivated when the literals they represented were deemed to be one or more of the following: Redundant; Not widely used; Easily confused with other subjects; More appropriately listed in a different section" Note: although no longer stated on the website, these statements were also repeated in previous lists of differences between editions since, at least, The second cited aspect, the fact that a code was not widely used, is closed related to the concept of "market warrant" too.
Moreover, the BISG also states that emphasis added : "It is highly recommended that inactivated codes which have already been assigned to titles be replaced [ Therefore, although it is recommended that inactivated codes be replaced by active codes, it is also recognized that replacing all occurrences of inactivated codes might not be possible in practice the old problem of reclassification.
This problem is partially solved with the "quarantine" of the inactivated codes, what means that with each new release of BISAC, old books that were categorized with inactivated codes will never mix with other books that have new active codes, since both groups will always have different codes. The Subject Codes Committee anticipates that most users would not re-categorize backlist.
After all, in due time, most titles with inactivated codes will go out of print and the heading [codes] will retire with the books. Receivers of inactivated headings [codes] have a decision to make.
They must decide whether to maintain such headings [codes], often leading to duplication or near duplication within their subject database, or they must re-categorize titles in the database with such headings [codes]. Ideally, it would be appropriate to re-categorize these titles, particularly if they will stay in print for a number of years — although as noted above, we recognize that this is not always practical, especially for users with large databases.
Maintaining such headingd [codes] in an in-house database is a viable option. However, if the heading [codes] are to be sent to trading partners, bringing the headings [codes] up to date is preferable. Recognizing the difficulties of reclassification, a system in which reclassification is not strictly needed is provided.
In this case, the market is what, in due time and in a natural way, will retire all those books categorized with deactivated codes. Despite not being exactly true that it was the first library in the United States to drop Dewey, Perry Branch Library did mark a milestone in the field as the first public library in the United States to adopt the book industry standard BISAC instead of Dewey as the classification system for organizing the collection.
This idea had been previously devised by director Harry Courtright in , and was implemented in by adult services coordinator Marshall Shore with the opening of the Perry Branch, although Nanci Hill, Head of Readers' Services at the Nevins Memorial Library in Methuen, Massachusetts, states that the beginning of the concept was a pilot plan in two libraries in Delaware County Pa.
According to Amy Wang, of The Arizona Republic , the conversion plan for the system in the Perry Branch took nearly five years, although county officials say that by it only took from one to two months to make a library Dewey-less. By August 5th, , the date on which Harry Courtright retired, eight of Maricopa's 17 libraries were using BISAC and three more branches were scheduled for conversion in that year Kelley Although a strict adoption of BISAC was used in the beginning, this situation changed and the standard was eventually modified and adapted to the needs of the community as well as to the size and complexity of the collection.
According to Norman Oder , Maricopa originally outsourced all the cataloging for the project, and Brodart, which provided the opening day collection, worked to translate Dewey to the new system. According to Jennifer Miele, of Maricopa County Library District, working closely with vendors is considered a vital part of the project when what is wanted is to add libraries to the BISAC-based scheme in a consortium or system Fister Since its opening, Maricopa County Library District has inspired many other libraries willing to get rid of Dewey and has conducted more than sixty tours for librarians from all over the United States, Canada and South America.
In this study, the authors concluded that one of the biggest assets of BISAC for its survival would be the standardization and centralization provided by the BISG, something that is not always strictly followed by libraries using the system due to the charactistics of the library as an institution. In addition, several libraries have discontinued the project or reported reverting some of the BISAC features after a not-so-satisfying experience see for instance Barnett As a system that is used to organize knowledge i.
BISAC does not follow a facet-analytic approach either, as it is mainly an enumerative and alphabetical system. The development of BISAC is not based on user-based or cognitive approaches, as users buyers are not surveyed and reflected on the system, but the publishers and BISG members express their opinion on what might sell best.
It is well accepted in critical circles, that marketing and the market do not always reflect what consumers want, but try to establish trends and dictate what they desire. Finally, BISAC does not follow a domain-analytic approach either, the interests and points of views of the different communities are not considered. BISAC is a system that is driven by the intuitive knowledge and estimations of the market on potential sales and editorial activities. BISAC is praticalist because it was devised as a practical way to exchange and organize information according to the industry convenience especially regarding standardization and centralization.
While initially intended for its use just in the book industry and bookstores, it was later exported to libraries and other platforms with the participation and complaisance of OCLC and other actors. It might be said that BISAC, in some way, indicates that the initiative of developing new systems have moved from the library sector to other sectors such as the book industry.
However, while following the same logic and approaches in its development, as in the case of the DDC and not departing from it as some library adopters enthutiastically believed , it did not take too long to get the involvement of OCLC and other LIS actors.
While the system did not adapt too much to the LIS community, BISAC advocates within the community tried to change the LIS community by highlighting the necessities and benefits of borrowing ideas from the commercial sector. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for the comments. Barnett, Andy. Differences between the edition and the edition. Bole, Angela, and Connie Harbison. About ECPA. Fister, Barbara.
Harbison, Connie. Kelley, Michael. Olson, and Margaret Kipp. By clicking the "submit" button, you are agreeing to receive future marketing e-mail messages from IngramSpark. Cookie Preferences. Create Account Log In Help. Back to Blog. Monday, April 10, Tweet. Why only give your book one opportunity to be found when you can give it three? Books are seldom about just one thing.
Look for codes that reflect the breadth and depth of your book's content. Do not select codes that pertain to only one chapter or reflect only a peripheral topic or theme of the work. If someone was looking for a book about a particular topic, imagine their disappointment if they only found one paragraph about it in your page book. The first subject code should be the best, most accurate, and most specific code possible. The more specific your code, the more targeted the reader it will attract.
The more targeted the reader attracted to your book, the more likely you are to secure a purchase. We cannot stress this enough.
0コメント