Did you know that BookNet Canada sits on the North American committee that compiles the BISAC Subject Headings List, also known as the BISAC Subject Codes List? Administered by the Book Industry Study Group’s Subject Codes Committee, the BISAC Subject Headings List is a standard used by many companies across the supply chain to categorize books and book products based on their content. The BISAC Subject Headings List is updated annually, with a group of industry participants spanning the breadth of the supply chain from across North America advising on new subjects to add, subjects to retire, and suggestions to reword or re-categorize existing Subjects.

BookNet is interested in supporting and representing Canadian interests. As directed by the Canadian National Bibliographic Committee, in recent years BookNet’s representatives on the Subject Codes Committee have advocated for changes that would see an overall decolonization of the terminology and structure of the BISAC Subject Codes List to represent evolving terminology and efforts at reconciliation.

Following the changes to the 2019 Subject Codes List, where inappropriate uses of “Aboriginal” and “Native Canadian” were removed from subject categorization, BookNet representatives have secured additional changes for the 2022 edition focused on Juvenile and Young Adult Codes, which will be confirmed by the Book Industry Study Group’s Board of Directors and released at the end of the calendar year.

Building on the momentum of these previous years, BookNet would like to assemble a group of industry professionals who are interested in advancing the mandate of the Canadian National Bibliographic Committee to decolonize the BISAC Subject Codes List, with a specific focus on examining existing codes in the adult Fiction and Non-Fiction categories, with an eye to identifying gaps in code assignment for Indigenous titles where sufficient titles are already circulating in the market, and updating terminology and the structure of existing codes.

We expect to meet one or two times per month, virtually, between October 2022 and August 2023. There will be occasional research, small documentation, or outreach tasks between meetings, with the bulk of the work directed by the group and executed by BookNet Canada staff. If you're interested in contributing, please contact our Standards team at standards@booknetcanada.ca by Oct. 31, 2022. Professionals of any industry tenure or job description are invited to participate, and we're happy to discuss the opportunity with you or your manager to describe the nature of your expected participation.