A New Way to Organize with the Patron in Mind BISAC A New Way to Organize with the Patron in Mind Introduction: Who I am Who has heard of BISAC before? Who has done something different in their library already? Who is thinking about looking at different ways to organize their collections? Lots of hybrid models, and other libraries who have gone through a similar transformation. Wilmington, Dover, Groton, Darien CT, Rangeview. We can talk about these examples a little bit later. Deb Hoadley, Advisor Massachusetts Library System dhoadley@masslibsystem.org 866-627-7228 ext 309 (toll free in MA) 508-357-2121 ext 309

BISAC Categories (Book Industry Subject and Category Codes) ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES ARCHITECTURE ART BIBLES BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY BODY, MIND & SPIRIT BUSINESS & ECONOMICS COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS COMPUTERS COOKING CRAFTS & HOBBIES DESIGN* DRAMA EDUCATION FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS FICTION FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY GAMES GARDENING HEALTH & FITNESS HISTORY HOUSE & HOME HUMOR JUVENILE FICTION JUVENILE NONFICTION LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES LAW LITERARY COLLECTIONS LITERARY CRITICISM MATHEMATICS MEDICAL MUSIC NATURE PERFORMING ARTS PETS PHILOSOPHY PHOTOGRAPHY POETRY POLITICAL SCIENCE PSYCHOLOGY REFERENCE RELIGION SCIENCE SELF-HELP SOCIAL SCIENCE SPORTS & RECREATION STUDY AIDS TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING TRANSPORTATION TRAVEL TRUE CRIME BISAC stands for the Book Industry Subject and Category codes. It is a standard and was created, maintained and revised by the BISG (Book Industry Study Group). All publishers use these codes. There are over 3,000. Show the book example. MLS: Deb Hoadley 5/2/12

From the BISAC “bible” MLS: Deb Hoadley 5/2/12 A volunteer typed in all the columns from the BISG website, and then as staff members worked on their sections, they created the spine label designations. Another volunteer typed our labels and put them on the books. Ingram will now process this as part of their normal processing. In the past, they would charge up to $2 to handle 1 book. If you fill in the form, there is no charge. If they dp it, it is a $500 one-time charge. Things do change, so you have to keep updating the book and the designations so they are processed correctly. MLS: Deb Hoadley 5/2/12

Record and label changes This plays nicely with the consortium catalog, and their bibliographic records. A positive is that less time is spent shelving because decimals and finding proper placement of books will be easily identified. We will talk about how this translated into collection development skills for our library pages. MLS: Deb Hoadley 5/2/12

Motivation & Innovation Browsability Searchability Items are placed together by category based on a language system, not numerical system Collection development will be easier Customer satisfaction Staff time will be used for more patron interaction & reader’s advisory People come to the library to browse for materials. Most common answer to “Can we help you find something?” is “No, just looking to see what you have.” People want it to be easy to search, both in the library and online. They want independence to find their own items. Words are easier to find than numbers. By going through and re-classifying the collection, we weeded extensively. What wasn’t circulating and make room for materials people want. This led to better customer service and better staff/patron interactions. We no longer are helping them “look up a number” and guiding them to an area, we are interacting with them in a more meaningful way through reader’s advisory, asking more reference questions, etc. MLS: Deb Hoadley 5/2/12

Final Layout MLS: Deb Hoadley 5/2/12 Since everyone wants fiction, mysteries an biographies, we make people walk through non-fiction to get there. Turned shelving on a bias to create interest. MLS: Deb Hoadley 5/2/12

Justification Statistical data to support Patrons love the new layout of the library Patrons love the ability to look at the sections and find what they are looking for Shelving is easier No conflict with consortium/just a change in local call number Statistics only show part of the picture. Most common question is how big was our collection that we converted to BISAC: We converted about 6000 titles. 2008 2010 Book Collection 58,882 30,610 (weeded almost ½ of our collection overall in the library) Circulation 35,038 56,981 (62%) Non-Fiction Collection 2,978 5,226 (76%) March 2010 433 nonfiction circulation May 2010 484 circulation (1 month after renovation – some books were still in boxes and not on yet) Sept 2010 1,010 circulation (133% increase) MLS: Deb Hoadley 5/2/12

Information Webinar by National Book Network http://pdfs.nbnbooks.com/BI/SAC/BISACWebinar.pdf Book Industry Standard Group http://www.bisg.org/ Book publishers are putting categories on backs of books http://waltshiel.com/2009/09/14/to-bisac-or-not-to-bisac/ http://www.slideshare.net/DHoadley_Langley/bisac-a-new-way-to-organize-with-the-patron-in-mind http://guides.masslibsystem.org/BeyondDewey I will post the link to the ppt on the MLS website. Q&A Library share what they have been doing. MLS: Deb Hoadley 5/2/12