Cynthia, it's been a while but I wanted to give you feedback...

Ranking on importance based on library ownership and/or circulation is 
something that I've seen discussed but not implemented -- mainly due to 
the difficulty of gathering the data from library systems. But it seems 
like an obvious way to rank results, IMO.

Too bad that one has to pay for BISAC headings. They tend to mirror the 
headings in bookstores (and ebook stores) that people might be familiar 
with. They capture fiction topics, especially, in a way to resonates 
with some users (topics like "Teen Paranormal Romance").

kc

On 10/22/14 1:25 PM, Harper, Cynthia wrote:
> So I'm deleting all the Bisac subject headings (650_7|2bisacsh) from our ebook records - they were deemed not to be useful, especially as it would entail a for-fee indexing change to make them clickable.  But I'm thinking if we someday have a discovery system, they'll be useful as a means for broader-to-narrower term browsing that won't require translation to English, as would call number ranges.
>
> As I watch the system slowly chunk through them, I think about how library collections and catalogs facilitate jumping to the most specific subjects, but browsing is something of an afterthought.
>
> What if we could set a ranking score for the "importance" of an item in browsing, based on circulation data - authors ranked by the relative circulation of all their works, same for series, latest edition of a multi-edition work given higher ranking, etc.?  Then have a means to set the threshold importance value you want to look at, and browse through these general Bisac terms, or the classification?  Or have a facet for "importance" threshold.  I see Bisac sometimes has a broadness/narrowness facet ("overview") - wonder how consistently that's applied, enough to be useful?
>
> Guess those rankings would be very expensive in compute time.
>
> Well, back to the deletions.
>
> Cindy Harper
> Electronic Services and Serials Librarian
> Virginia Theological Seminary
> 3737 Seminary Road
> Alexandria VA 22304
> 703-461-1794
> [log in to unmask]

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Karen Coyle
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