I do not think the "bookstore model" (BISAC? BIC2? THEMA?) is good
enough for a school unless your school is like a bookstore. For
instance, how many books on Civil War does your school have? DDC has
more than 60 categories on it while BISAC has only one. Of course the
solution for some libraries was to modify the scheme, but in that case
they lose the advantages of using a standard. This leads to another
problem: reclassification. I guess bookstores do not have to worry
about each new version of the scheme because, in due time, most titles
with inactivated codes will go out of print and the codes will retire
with the books. But I wonder if this apply to libraries too and if
vendors are willing to provide new codes for their out of print books
(provided that the library is not using a modification). Another
problem is the use of BISAC in the catalog, I also found that BISAC
codes are not retrieved in a Subject search, so libraries need to know
about MARC to fix that.
I have been studying the application of BISAC in public libraries for
years and believe me that it is more than problematic, I would not
recommend any school/student to stop learning about IO because there
are many things to improve and fix.
Daniel Martinez Avila
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
|