[Libs-Or] BISAC

Wed Jun 11 14:43:22 PDT 2014

And from Dee Crowner, now retired (with picture!):

Yes, Dewey does group by subject but what I like about subject based is 
the fact that all on one subject is in one place and not scattered in 
the 970's,  300's and probably other place throughout the collection 
which would be one reason for not putting BISAC or your own subjects on 
the end panels.  The same basic subjects could be in several different 
places.   Patrons like it because it is  more visual and friendly than 
Dewey numbers for them.  Also, people use bookstores a lot and are used 
this type of categorization.   Redoing all the labels wasn't necessary.  
We could have done just the non-fiction but it was a staff decision to 
do all the material to have the entire collection labeled/looking the 
"same" for the ease of our patrons.  Converting to subject based took us 
around two years, a lot of time and energy, mulling over and deciding 
where to put material but it was so worth it in the end.  If large 
libraries like AnyThink and Maricopa can do it we all can if that is 
what you want.  It does take a lot of preparation up front and probably 
convincing some staff and maybe even downright nagging to get them 
started but in the end it all worked out great both for both staff and 
patrons for us.

Dee

Dee Crowner

Library Director

North Liberty Community Library

Elizabeth M. Rivera
Library Assistant
Coquille Public Library
105 N Birch St
Coquille OR 97423
541-396-2166

On 06/11/2014 02:15 PM, Elizabeth M. Rivera wrote:
> From Jennie Garner in Iowa, who graciously allowed me to share (I'm 
> sharing on-list because I think others might be interested):
>
> Great discussion! I've enjoyed reading the comments/questions and 
> agree with some opinions written from each school of thought.
>
> And isn't that the beauty of libraries? Librarians are historically 
> flexible and generally adapt for what works in their respective 
> communities; we tailor our collections, services and programs to meet 
> the needs/desires of our users. What works for one library may not 
> work at all for a neighbor even 30 miles down the road.
>
> The boost in circulation of our nonfiction in all age ranges has us 
> sold that this system what works for North Liberty. In the first few 
> months, we had a good number of ART and ARCHITECTURE books checked out 
> that had never left the shelves under their Dewey numbers.
>
> Here in North Liberty, we found that the majority of our patrons were 
> requesting books by subject -- "can you tell me where your True Crime 
> books are?" or "where are your books on dogs?" "Parenting?" 
> "Childbirth?", "Gardening?" So it felt natural for us to migrate our 
> collection to subject-based  classification rather than assigning 
> Dewey numbers. We have found that using subject-based call numbers, as 
> opposed to Dewey, has been an intuitive and welcome switch for the 
> majority of our patrons (not all, we have had three patrons state that 
> they didn't like it but many, many more who have complimented the 
> change).
>
> Staff are seeing less requests now for "where is this section" and 
> people simply reading our signage (our end caps list the subjects) and 
> finding the material on their own quite often. We unveiled by hanging 
> up large posters that told the story of the switch with actual spine 
> label examples enlarged to 80 point size font. We try to ask if people 
> have found what they need and explain our system if patrons don't 
> understand but it has been a very smooth and easy transition for us. 
> There are always patrons who come straight to the desk no matter what 
> title they are looking for because it's quick and easy.
>
> But even with Dewey and its subject-based cataloging, there is still 
> some subjective decision-making happening for catalogers. You can go 
> to our SILO online and compare several libraries in Iowa with the same 
> title assigned a slightly or wholly different Dewey number and/or 
> different subject headings within a record as well.
>
> While our collection is based on BISAC, it's also localized to our 
> community. We have a section assigned WEDDINGS because we have a large 
> population of young people and a lot of interest in this area. In the 
> juvenile, we have DINOSAURS because it's so popular.
>
> It is definitely getting harder to assign genre labels to fiction as 
> we see romance-fantasy crossovers, etc. We did survey our patrons a 
> couple times and they resoundingly responded that they like the genre 
> labels and separate categorization so we do our best to assign 
> according to the descriptions and reviews.
>
> It works for us here. When we were first discussing this change during 
> a presentation about it, a librarian said that sometimes she can't 
> find what she's searching for in the bookstore and the response from 
> the presenter was: "Librarians are the only ones who can't find things 
> in Barnes & Noble." J
>
> Thanks for reading!
>
> *Jennie Garner*
>
> *Assistant Library Director*
>
> *North Liberty Community Library*
>
> *PO Box 320*
>
> *North Liberty, IA 52317*
>
> *319.626.5778 (w)*
>
> *319.321.8056 (c)*
>
> *www.northlibertylibrary.org*
>
> Please note that messages sent and received on this account may become 
> public record.
> Elizabeth M. Rivera
> Library Assistant
> Coquille Public Library
> 105 N Birch St
> Coquille OR 97423
> 541-396-2166
>
>
>
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