Receive the weekly sampler of posts and "Resource of the Week".
Subscribe »

Enter your
email address:

My Account »


Bookmark and Share

Testimonial?
If you find ResourceShelf useful, please supply a testimonial »








Home > ResourceBlog > Article

« All ResourceBlog Articles

 

Bookmark and Share   Feed

Wednesday, 31st March 2010

A Wyoming Public Library Tests Use of Subject Headings from Book Industry Study Group

The Natrona County Public Library in Casper, Wyoming is now testing the use of BISAC — “Book Industry Standards and Communications” from the Book Industry Study Group as a way to organize books in the library. It was developed to help people find material in bookstores.

From the Article:

Librarian Betsy O’Neil stood in the reference section of the Natrona County Public Library, pointed to the call number on one of the stacks and wondered how many people knew what 798 means in the Dewey Decimal Classification System.

[Snip]

Last year, O’Neil, [technical service coordinator Susan] Stanton, and library director Bill Nelson wondered how they could make a good system better.

“Let’s look at making this more intuitive,” Nelson said during the library’s board of directors last week before O’Neil told them about some changes she had made in the reference department.

First, O’Neil said, Internet access to information rendered some of the noncirculating reference materials unnecessary, so she transferred about half of them — about 250 books — to the general collection so people can check them out.

Then librarians began reviewing the headings developed by the Book Industry Study Group, which sets standards for the U.S. book trade, including book stores, O’Neil told the directors.

The group created BISAC — “Book Industry Standards and Communications” — in part to help people find their way in bookstores, she said.

[Snip]

Some libraries, including a branch in Arizona, have gone totally BISAC, Stanton said. “Maricopa County was the first to fire the shot across the bow,” Stanton said.

“This is almost a baby step to use this system, to see if it works,” she said.

Others, such as the Natrona County Public Library, employ both classification methods, but are limiting the changes to the reference section to gauge users’ reactions, Stanton and O’Neil said.


Access the Complete Article

Source: Billings Gazette/Casper Star-Tribune

See Also: List of BIASIC Subject Heading

See Also: Roadmap of Identifiers (Graphic)


Category:

Views: 1315




blog comments powered by Disqus

« All ResourceBlog Articles

 

Read about the FreePint FamilyFreePint Family

A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »


FeedLatest Family Articles:


Click to view the article Quilting big data threads
Thursday, 24th May 2012

Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.


Click to view the article The fallacy of information overload
Wednesday, 23rd May 2012

A lot of the talk around social media in the last year has been around information overload. Social media has provided us with new and exciting ways to create content. But it has also meant learning new ways to manage and engage with social media tools. Are we teetering on the edge of an information overload precipice?


Click to view the article Information overload: fact, fantasy or filter failure?
Wednesday, 23rd May 2012

Information overload is a figment of your imagination. Or a failure of your filter. Or a symptom of your technological submissiveness. Depends on who you ask.


Click to view the article Newsdesk: tracking millions of pieces of information a day
Tuesday, 22nd May 2012

What if you had to sort through 3.5 million articles and social media posts a day and try to pull out the most relevant items for your organisation? What if you then had to cobble it all together into something readable for your top groups and executives in your organisation?


Click to view the article Alacra Compliance adds managerial oversight
Tuesday, 22nd May 2012

Alacra Compliance saves time by aggregating information from both free and fee-based sources and enabling users to conduct an accurate federated search across these sources (coined “simultaneous search” by Alacra).


All Family Articles »
Family Articles by Category »


Tell us what you're working on,
and we'll talk to you about how FreePint can help »


FreePint Family Testimonials

"Fabulous resource to learn of unique tools and insights. Very useful." Manager, Futures and Forecasting, Virginia, USA

More testimonials »






Subscribe

Subscribe to the ResourceShelf Newsletter and receive the weekly sampler of posts and Resource of the Week.

Find out more »

ResourceShelf sponsored by:

Article Categories

All Article Categories »

Archive

All Archives »