With the recent release of new BISAC subject codes for 2019, in this podcast episode, host Elizabeth Barker goes over the changes, what they mean for Indigenous books in Canada, and asks publishers Theytus Books, Second Story Press, and Kegedonce to share their thoughts.
(Scroll down for a transcript of the conversation.)
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Transcript
Elizabeth Barker: Hello, I'm Elizabeth Barker, and in this episode, I have standards...to talk about. It's a brand new year and you know what that means. Yes. We get new and slight variants of existing BISAC codes. Yes, today's episode centres around some of the changes and additions to the 2019 Book Industry Standards and Communications codes.
Released in late December, the 2019 edition focused primarily on updates to Computers and Religion. We've added a link to the BISG press release in the further reading section as well as a link to the archived codes that are no longer in use. And don't worry, they do come with recommendations on what to use in their stead. It's an interesting read for its own sake, but if you're like me and you like to put everything into historical context, it's a bit of a treat really.
Certain codes are no longer with us, such as Data Transmission Systems/Image Transmission. I can completely see in the '90s that there might have been an entire shelf dedicated to these books, but by today's standards, I can barely conceive of a book dedicated to it. By the way, the replacement code recommended is TEC071000, Technology & Engineering/Data Transmission Systems/General. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention my personal favourites that were removed from the list: Computers/CD-ROM technology/IBM-compatible and COM046060 Computers/Operating Systems/DOS. May they rest in peace.
Seeing how the industry predicted where technology was heading, and how they incorporated new concepts when it took a bit of a turn makes me re-examine the BISAC classification system itself, where its strengths and weaknesses lie, especially in relation to the global up-and-comer Thema. Where BISAC serves, and should as it was created to, physical bookstore as well, there's only so much space in an individual bookstore, and online shopping may be transforming what was a space-saving organizational tool into something else entirely, and that system may already be in existence. So, the question is, does BISAC need to change, step aside, or stay the course and co-exist with Thema? Our standards bearer, Tom Richardson, weighs in.
Tom Richardson: Hi, I'm Tom Richardson, BookNet Canada's Bibliographic Manager. We're here today to announce and celebrate changes to the BISAC subjects.
I want to put the relationship of BISAC and Thema into some perspective. The larger Canadian publishers have added Thema, but overall adoption in North America is weak. This is a serious mistake. We are not advocating that anyone stop using BISAC. The industry would be stronger if we were using both. It's worth the effort to add Thema.
BISAC is a superb system. It's well organized in a great deal of care and an intent to group books selling in reasonable quantities into actionable units for retailers. If you want a system that can describe a book's place in the North American market in three codes or less, BISAC is your system. Thema is different. For a start, Thema codes are translated into multiple languages and several new translations appear each year. These translations are made based on meaning, the translation of subjects, not words, and the act of translation has improved Thema's clarity in English. So, it's providing better terms and extending the market reach of books that have it. Now, we know that's useful because BookNet has been approached by two companies wanting to codify Thema terms for use in keyword lists. They recognize that you're not using Thema, but they also need those standardized terms so they can have systematic access to terms in education and other specialty needs. Standardized terms are useful. We'd be better off with BISAC and Thema and keywords all being different and all being indexed by retailers. Thema provides a picture of what the book is about, where it's set, when it's set, and who it relates to. Ten codes, subject and qualifiers, are common in a Thema subject. And that should free space in limited keyword entries. That's underpins the BISAC market placement. Finally, and direct to topic, if you care about diversity, Thema is by far the best subject system you have available. The BISAC codes we're talking about today are currently available in Thema. Thank you.
Elizabeth: BookNet staff sit on the BISG Subject Codes Committee, as well as the Bibliographic Committee, which covers Thema and a few others. We were able to add and alter a few codes to better serve the Canadian market. If you're looking for a more thorough examination of the changes though to the 2019 codes, Tom Richardson has also drafted this handy read, "What's New in Bibliographic Standards" which we've linked to in the show notes.
Okay. So, first, the new. Canadian poetry is now a tree. Ohoo. POE011010 is a brand new code that stands for Poetry/Canadian/Indigenous. And if you were to go look up Canadian poetry on CataList right now, just type in Canadian poetry, you'd see that this is a needed code to represent a rising trend. So, code JUV030090, which I'm sure you have memorized, Juvenile Fiction/People & Places/Native Canadian has been altered and now reads People & Places/Canada/Indigenous. The same amendment has been made to code JNF038120, Juvenile Non-fiction. This is based on feedback we've received through various industry professionals that "Native Canadian" was just not correct by any means. And we're extremely happy to see that these codes have changed. If you're a publisher who has been using either of these Juvenile codes up until this point, you do not need to change anything in your metadata to reflect this new terminology. The codes themselves have stayed the same. As online retailers and physical books stores update their subject heading lists to the 2019 version, it is their systems that will reflect the semantic changes.
Though we're thrilled to have made these alterations and additions, we acknowledge that this is only a beginning. We know more is needed, it's a sentiment that's been buzzing around for years. It's now 2020, Canada is the guest of honour at the upcoming Frankfurt Book Fair, the industry events have aligned as it were, and the time is finally right to state once and for all what is exactly needed. As this fits in perfectly with our forever hunger for feedback. So, we sought out a few publishers who are actively promoting and publishing Indigenous authors and works, and we wanted to hear their thoughts and experiences of categorizing their content for various markets. For each of these publishers, we've included links to their websites in the show notes in case you'd like to conduct further research into their mandates or their backlists. And warning, most of the books mentioned sound really good.
Our first publisher, Theytus Books, is the only Indigenous trade publisher in BC and the most established and long-standing Indigenous publisher in Canada. Theytus is regarded by Indigenous authors and the industry as an important Indigenous publisher, and an example for other and upcoming Indigenous publishers. Ann Doyon, Sales and Marketing Manager at Theytus, is an accomplished designer and multimedia artist, whose career spans decades. She is known for her powerful wordplay and intense performing style and she was nice enough to speak with us.
Ann, thank you so much for being here with us today.
Ann Doyon: No worries. Thank you for having me.
Elizabeth: Great. Okay. So, I have the first question for you. So, what are your main priorities as a publisher?
Ann: Well, our main priority is pretty much our name. Theytus means handing down, sorry, preserving for the sake of handing down. Since our founding, because our experience and insight from within Indigenous communities, we've employed a unique decision-making process and editorial publishing procedure based on Indigenous practices. So, we work to ensure that Indigenous material is expressed to the highest possible level of cultural authenticity and in the manner which maintains Indigenous cultural integrity.
Elizabeth: That's amazing. That sounds like a very big job.
Ann: It is. But it's really cool. I mean, like it, as in all publishing, it's not like you're going to make a huge amount of money doing this, but you have to have a passion for it. And Theytus, the passion is basically to preserve the stories in our language, history, or customs and it's a great job. You know, you'll get at the end of the day because you've actually saved an elder's story or you've saved something to pass down to future generations and that's like the best.
Elizabeth: Yeah. It's that feeling of a higher calling in terms of cultural awareness.
Ann: It's actually really personal to me because mom went to residential school and I think I was like probably 12 by the time she actually told me about it. But I've always, you know, wondered and asked her, "Well, why didn't you just quit?" And then she explained it to me that, you know, she was beat at school. When I got this job about 10 years ago, it kind of helped me, myself, because you can learn the language, but it's the resources that are available. So, that's kind of one of the best things about my job is I make resources available for like youth and adults to learn about their culture and their history and their traditions. I love it. Like, it's cool when we have different books. We had this one book by an elder and she passed away just before the book... Well, we're able to give her a final copy of the book and she was just so happy that her knowledge would be shared and that these cultural stories would be preserved for like future generations coming up. There's nothing better than, you know, knowing that your work is actually going to be understood and appreciated by people.
Elizabeth: That is very true. That's such a wonderful story. Well, I'm getting all... We came to talk about standards and I'm having such an emotional reaction.
Ann: It's okay.
Elizabeth: Yeah. But it's so important and it is sort of reminds us of what we do, why we do what we do. Because you're right, because in publishing the money is not there.
Ann: No. There, there's not a lot of money going around, but, you know, occasionally you make these great... Well, actually Theytus makes really good books and it's not really for the capitalization of the stories, it's more preserving them for future generations and so that, you know, when our children want to learn about our cultures and our histories, we have some materials that are Indigenous, created in Indigenous content, you know.
Elizabeth: Yes. The resources are there. And actually going in this educational stream, I have a question for you. It's, how do you define Aboriginal and Indigenous? There's some sort of debate based on region and some people seem to think they're synonymous. And so how would you define them?
Ann: For me, working here at Theytus, Aboriginals for me means the Aboriginals of Australia because that is their term that they've claimed for themselves. Indigenous here, I believe that is nation to nation across Canada, we're covered under the Indigenous flake. I know there's a lot of people that are still kind of touchy about different names that they're classified under. If they have a traditional name that's in their language, we will use that. Let's say instead of Mohawk, it would be Haudenosaunee or Onkwehón:we, right? It's different names. But typically, we'd go with Indigenous out of respect for the people.
Elizabeth: So, in terms of categorizing your book's content, obviously there is a limitation in BISAC. We've had, up until this point, Indigenous Aboriginal, but we've also had Native Canadian, which isn't really a term that is used in Canada at all, and we were able to recently actually change that to Indigenous in terms of Juvenile and Juvenile Non-fiction. So, how have you been dealing with this up to this point of actually using by BISAC and categorizing your books properly so that everyone feels represented?
Ann: Well, I'm really glad about the new BISAC codes, like Juvenile Fiction, People & Places Canada Indigenous and Juvenile Non-Fiction. Before, we had to just place some of our stories under Canada historical and it didn't have that Indigenous label on it, which kind of kept us off the shelf. So, we're really happy with the new, especially with Poetry, POE1011010. We're happy with Canadian Indigenous poetry because our poetry is unique, not only in its context but in its, the way that it's written, the way that it's described and the way that it's actually created. So, we don't really fit underneath Canadian poetry. So, it's really great for us to actually have a BISAC code that complements our books.
Elizabeth: Yeah. And we were actually pleased we were able to get it, to present it to the BISAC committee because we're seeing such a rising trend in Canada of Indigenous authors or poets putting out a lot of material, especially in the past three years. So, it's always wonderful to see sort of a rising trend that is homegrown, so to speak.
Ann: Oh, yeah. It's amazing. I love the fact that, you know, we're having more Indigenous writers, Indigenous poets, Indigenous historians, you know, and it's a real nod from you guys that you actually did this, you know, without having to bring up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Instead of like working off that, you guys were like, "You know what? This needs to be done. Let's do it." And it's awesome. One of the things that we'd like to use or actually have started is, sorry. It's hard to classify, just to have it classified as Indigenous books is great. We are Indigenous books, but nation. So, if it was a Mohawk writer, a little more detail on nation to nation or by category, let's say a Cree writer. That's one of those things that we kind of hope for, you know, because we could put different writers in there under their nation. But other than that, just to what you guys have been doing is really great, like, including the Indigenous Canadian versions of the BISAC code. So, not only just the Juvenile Fiction but like the adult fiction as well.
Elizabeth: That is, yeah, that's what we're hoping to expand on. We're not done yet, but we very much felt that it was time to go back to the publishers and those who are, you know, of course using it and putting out the works and really trying to get a better feel of what is needed and what the desires are so we can take that and be like, "No, we have very good authority on this."
Ann: Oh, yeah. It's like questioning, you know, and it's really cool that you guys are including us in it. Because, you know, normally the Eurocentric European, well, normally the Eurocentric model is, "We're going to classify you as we see fit," and you don't have any feedback. Whereas you guys are like, "What do you need? What can we do for you?" And it's really positive for us because we see that the change in our culture or Canadian culture is actually coming through to people, you know, that Indigenous people are respected for their unique vision, knowledge and, you know, history. And this is just one of these ways that, you know, BNC is actually really ahead of the game.
Elizabeth: Second Story Press is dedicated to publishing feminist-inspired books for adults and young readers. A small press with a big impact, they ended publishing award-winning books that entertain, educate and empower for over 30 years. While they're not Indigenously owned, in the past few years, they have dedicated an increasing percentage of their frontlist to new and established Indigenous authors, publishing Indigenous works for all ages. We sat down with Emma Rogers, the Marketing and Promotions Manager at Second Story Press. Emma has said that she is happy that her work has allowed her to collaborate with people who put a feminist social justice agenda first, and we wanted to hear more about that. Let's just talk a little bit about Second Story as it is now. So, what are your main priorities as a publisher?
Emma Rogers: Well, for Second Story continues to be publishing feminist, social justice-themed books for kids and all the way through adults, but the majority of our list is children, YA, about 70%. And since the beginning, that's been the mission, and I'd say in the last 10 years we've tried to sort of act more actively or in some different ways find and promote Indigenous writers to work with. And we've held two Indigenous writing contests to try and find new people to publish.
Elizabeth: And do you have sort of... What was the reasoning behind holding these contests specifically for Indigenous writers?
Emma: Well, we rely a lot on people sending in manuscripts as a lot of publishers do, I think. And also, you know, the connections that you can make. And we wanted to make more connections to Indigenous writers and also to encourage people who are writing or who maybe thought about writing but never had, to encourage them to think about being published by a, you know, a mainstream publisher in Canada. And we thought there might be people out there who if they saw the opportunity, they may not have sort of thought of doing that before. But if they thought there was a way to do it that was accessible, they would try. And it turned out to be true, and we've had some amazing successes. Yeah.
Elizabeth: And some wonderful stories that have come out recently for both children, YA, as you said. When you're categorizing sort of, especially because you have first-time authors and they're kind of maybe not sticking to a specific genre because they don't know what they like writing yet. So, how have you been finding categorizing Indigenous authors versus the rest sort of your list?
Emma: Categorizing them...
Elizabeth: In terms of using like BISAC codes.
Emma: BISAC codes? I mean, by the time it gets to that point, it's relatively clear. You know, we try and make all those decisions beforehand. I think it is true, sometimes it's a conversation, especially if someone, say, an author or illustrator hasn't been published before, they just don't know sort of the categories that are used or the ways that the books are sorted and how booksellers and librarians interact with them. So, sometimes that's a conversation so that we're all on the same page. And, yeah. And that also that everyone is in an agreement with, with how we're going forward, like, that this book is, say, a non-fiction book or that it is fiction and that's clear. Yeah.
Elizabeth: Do you find that there's a request to make sure that it is categorized as Indigenous as opposed to just keeping it at a genre level? So, just saying science fiction and leaving it at that?
Emma: I think with our authors and the nature of the books that we've published by Indigenous authors specifically, the majority of them have been for children, although we did publish last year, Monique Gray Smith's adult novel, Tilly and the Crazy Eights.
Elizabeth: Which was a Loan Stars pick.
Emma: It's a Loan Stars pick, which is wonderful. But I think I can say pretty much across the board that everybody who we've published who falls under that into the category, if you want to call that, of Indigenous authors in writing have been writing with an Indigenous audience and subject matter and character, landscape at the fore of their work. So, there was never any question that that was part of the reason that they were writing these books to...and that they wanted them to be seen that way. And I can totally understand an author who, what might have a sort of a different approach or want their book not to be seen first as an Indigenous work or by an Indigenous writer, they just want it to be seen as a science fiction novel or something. And that's how they want to be accessed. But yeah, for us, it's usually been pretty clear that the Indigenous aspect has been very important and key to conveying in every way we categorize it.
Elizabeth: And I think that's very important to make a point of, that's why I bring it up in the fact that, being an Indigenous author does not necessarily mean that you are limited to writing for an Indigenous audience I think. But when the work itself calls for sort of a different structure editorially or think because Indigenous at the forefront is for, it's kind of following a different route that this is a category and it is important to see it rising. So, I wanted to make sure that people weren't confusing like Indigenous author versus Indigenous work, which is kind of...there is a very thin dividing line I find at times. Do you find that as well?
Emma: Yeah. Well, I think for our authors...for the authors that I've been working with, a lot of it has been a really interesting and wonderful to work with approach. And that they see it as a...I don't want to say the word mission, but as a guiding part of their work is to, and often it's in an educational way. Like they know that their books, if it's a children's author, they know their books will be read in schools and be, you know, going into that market. And it's a huge concern that for them as it is, you know, a growing issue that's being recognized by the industry at large, but anyone who's an author of colour or an Indigenous writer, you know, the idea that the Indigenous kids out there are seeing themselves reflected in the work and reflected in books. And so, that's like a huge priority that often comes up. And then we have, you know, and then author. So, for one author that might be almost like the primary concern when we're talking about how are we going to market this book, who do you seize the audience, who would you love to be reading it? And then other authors, you know, they're like, "I want everybody to read my book." I'd say probably, it's probably both for everybody. You know, they would love for their books to be read across the board and by any kind of a kid, say, if it's a children's book, but they...in their heart of hearts, they know that the kid who might need that book the most is from an Indigenous background.
Elizabeth: And yes, and of course, this is a very delicate topic obviously, and it's hard to speak about some times because you as well as these, I do feel like I don't have the authority to. But you're right in terms of marketing, like this is a universal book of course, everyone should read it, everyone should have access to it. But there is that sort of underlying mission as you say, or passion for representation and making sure that it's acknowledged but not limited to or not ignored or just chosen because, you know what I mean? Like it's such a fine line to walk and I find that, as you say, the industry at large is, of course, becoming more concerned about this, and that's why we're having these conversations and we're happy to have these conversations and very happy to have the conversation going. But it really comes down to like, this is another marketing strategy and we need to really make sure that everything is in place and fair.
Emma: I think it's a bit clearer and cleaner maybe for children's books and especially some of the books we've done that deal with non-fiction, you know, the history of residential schools. It's not, you know, it's so clear that that book has a purpose in the market and that there are, you know, there's actual, you know curriculum and teachers who need to have that book, and that will be useful to them. And so, it's such a clear line to market to. Whereas if you're talking about fiction and how do you talk about an author's background or how do they want to be seen by the world, I could see that that is, that can be a lot more nuanced. Yeah.
Elizabeth: And it's interesting as the continuing debate of do you separate a work from its author? Can it stand on its own or should they be part and parcel? And I like the fact that this has been going on what since T.S. Elliot who really like pushed this sort of thought and we still haven't come to consensus. And I think that's interesting. I like that though. So, in terms of categorizing, you mentioned BISAC. Have you been using Thema?
Emma: Yes.
Elizabeth: And how do you find Thema in terms of expressing sort of your categorization needs?
Emma: I think that the BISAC codes are more representative of Canadian...
Elizabeth: It's North American usage.
Emma: Yeah. And offer more specifics to a Canadian story, for example, than the Thema ones. I think the Thema is maybe by their very nature more, yeah. They might appeal to or reach someone who's searching for a book in a certain way, you know, by topic, and not maybe not under such sort of specific black and white categories that the BISACs hit.
Elizabeth: We find that...like we're a big like woo Thema, because by its nature it's designed to be global, which, of course, as everyone, like I think Frankfurt kind of proves to everybody, everybody's interested in everybody else's market. And it's supposed to be able to be more flexible. So, you're supposed to be able to sort of get more granular without having to introduce more codes. So, it's kind of like a nice mix and match because the more codes, the more options, the harder it is for discoverability. But, that being said, as you say, BISAC is North American based, it is heavily used between Canada and the States. I know that our standards guru, Tom Richardson, is very much that BISAC is for physical bookstores and by ISBN and it's supposed to be shelf space and Thema is meant more for the sort of changing digital landscape where it's not about the shelf anymore because we have unlimited, we've got the cloud, the cloud is everywhere. And so, it's kind of boosting discoverability by fitting everyone's needs without drowning us in codes. And it's an interesting time really to kind of be between the two. So, how do you find that, like when you put out a book, are you putting out both codes or do you find like it's one than the other a few months later?
Emma: We definitely, it's our process to try and when we are sort of starting the record and filling in the record for a book is to include both BISAC and Thema coding like subjects for every new title at the outset.
Elizabeth: So it's, yeah. So, both books are, that's good. That's good practice.
Emma: Yeah, that's the practice. I mean, definitely the Thema is newer for us. I can't remember exactly when we introduced that. I think it was with, yeah, when one of our previous marketing people, Allie Chenowith was with us and I think it was with her help that we started doing that. So, I think it's sometime maybe in the last five years. But now yeah, it's sort of standard that we do both. I'm not like an expert on who uses which, but I understand that they're both valuable and I feel like if they're both useful then we should definitely, that that should be our goal is to get them both out there.
Elizabeth: Do you find that you're kind of going and setting the BISAC codes and then sort of trying to find the Thema equivalent or are you going through Thema on its own and seeing just out of what's offered, what would fit best?
Emma: Yeah, I think we often will go and see what we did for a previous book that is on a similar topic, similar subject and see if, you know, what we can pull from that. Sometimes it's clear that yes, that we should use that code again. But we always try and look around a bit and think critically. And I think with the Thema codes especially to always do a bit more lateral thinking I guess and think about, okay, what is this book really about?
And I think it's best to always have it be a thought exercise for each title. You know, not, don't copy and paste by row what you've done before because unless, you know, you're doing, you know, a reissue of something, every book has...especially when you're getting to those sort of sub things that aren't the, you know, the primary codes when you're putting in extra codes that you hope will be helpful, you want it to try and, try and be as helpful as possible for that specific book.
Elizabeth: So, okay. If we're going to go to like a big sky, like you can do anything you want to do sort of idea and you could sort of categorize your Indigenous author works, how would you want to do? Like what would you wish was available to you now that isn't that you're maybe struggling around or just be like, "Oh, this would be so easy and nice to have?"
Emma: That's a bit of a, I mean, that's, that's a hard question.
Elizabeth: It's very big.
Emma: Yeah. Because, I mean, on the one hand, I understand the need to keep, you know, to not have an exponential proliferation of codes. But then at this, and I'm not, yeah, I'm not an expert, so I don't know exactly why there are the number there are and what, and how, you know, I know there's a process for introducing new codes and I'm sure it's not an easy thing. But to me, in an ideal world, barring, you know, any kind of problems that I don't know about that are created by introducing new codes, just being, it would be more specificity, especially if we're talking about Indigenous books. Right now, I think we're only just differentiating Canadian from American, like in terms of geography, current geography, that native American coding versus Canada. And I think I would like to see the more nuance coding be across the categories. It seems like it's not there yet.
Elizabeth: Not quite.
Emma: You know, there's now Indigenous and, um, there's Canada Indigenous replacing Aboriginal or Indigenous and Aboriginal, but not across the board.
Elizabeth: No. So, what we've done is our new ones for Juvenile Fiction and Non-Fiction, we took away Native Canadian, because that is not a real term here. So, that has been replaced with Indigenous, but it's the same sort of breakdown, Canada Indigenous. So, it's more specific to our market. And then in poetry, we sort of started to flesh out the Canadian poetry tree and we added the first sort of subheading of that, which is Canada Indigenous or Canadian Indigenous I think. So, it's very slow, but part of the reason that we're doing this podcast is to kind of get feedback from people who are sort of purveying Indigenous works and seeing kind of what they need us, in the other headings. So, I mean, there's no non-fiction specifically, but there are seven destin-, like, there's cooking and there's education and there's, I mean, even just fiction on its own for adult is sort of an area that we're looking into making sure it's available through use case in Canada, but doesn't, you're right, create like 40 billion gillion new codes and also doesn't exclude books from being found outside of our market. So, if native American is the term used most by the States, we want to make sure that our books are still found by people looking for similar, like fiction titles. Like obviously, Non-Fiction's a little more specific, but in terms of fiction titles, we want to make sure that we don't have two niches. We exclude discoverability when people are trying to sell in multi-markets. So, it's a balancing act, but that's why we like to hear what people wish they could have, you know, regardless of real-life consequences. Like in a perfect world, there would be codes that would just hit everything and help boost discoverability. So yeah, so it's more just like, "Oh, I wish there was an X code. [Raises arms to sky.]"
Emma: Yeah. I'm sure there've been times when, and I will try and write them down in the future, when I'm doing the codes and we've just thought, "Oh, if only this code existed," and it doesn't.
Elizabeth: Oh yeah, for everything. Get that back to us.
Emma: Yeah. And I probably should've thought of that beforehand, that or before now that we should be sort of, sometimes you just you just accept at face value what's presented to you and think, "Okay, to change this must be really difficult or to add to it." I guess, one of the things I was thinking about today, and maybe I could be wrong, is that in Juvenile fiction, the legends, myths and fables, there's a Native American category, but there isn't one for like Indigenous in general. So, this hasn't come up for us because we don't have anything that we would categorize as a legend, myth, fable book. But I could imagine that if you were something like an Avid Media, the sort of books that they are producing like a lot of, if they wanted to use that category. Like do you, yeah. I think anytime you sort of have to say, "Okay, my only option is native American," but...
Elizabeth: It's questionable. Yeah.
Emma: ...this person is, this author or this story's not native American by, as we understand anything today. Yeah. But that's an issue.
Elizabeth: And usually it's to use Indigenous, it's accompanied with Aboriginal, which is problematic sometimes in itself. It does sort of group Australia and Canada together because in those two territories, those terms, one each are acceptable. But if you cross those, it's not such the case. So, yeah. It's a large issue but it's one that we definitely needs to be spoken about a bit more and that's why we're kind of interviewing people from everywhere in Canada who were kind of just working towards a similar goal. Because if we don't hear, we don't know.
Emma: I was going to say, it is great that Native Canadian has been removed because that was not appropriate language to use and this is better. Yeah, this is better. And it's, I mean, just as the language changes and, you know, I'm sure these codes will keep evolving to reflect that.
Elizabeth: Kegedonce Press is one of only three dedicated Indigenous publishers in Canada and the only one in Ontario. They have been publishing books by Indigenous authors since 1993. Speaking with us today is Patricia Campbell, who has worked as the marketing assistant for Kegedonce Press since 2017. She is also a part-time university instructor and lives in Chatsworth, Ontario just South of Owens Sound.
Patricia Campbell: Well, Kegedonce Press has been interested in publishing Indigenous voices. We've been publishing for a little over 25 years now. They always say that their mandate is to publish beautiful books by Indigenous writers, illustrators, and designers. So, we tend to involve Indigenous people at all levels of production wherever we can. So, that's kind of our mandate.
Elizabeth: That's wonderful. So, that sort of relates back to the type of content that you're creating. It's a little bit of everything, fiction, non-fiction, poetry authors.
Patricia: Poetry. Through our history, we've published more poetry than anything else, but we are interested in and when we have published novels, short story collections. Our managing editor, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, has put together a couple of fantastic short fiction and poetry anthologies. We've done children's books and young adult books. We have a memoir upcoming and a graphic novel. And recently we printed a collection of sacred Ojibwe creation stories, which is fantastic.
Elizabeth: That's fascinating
Patricia: Covering "The Trail of Nenaboozhoo." So, yes. Wonderful, wonderful book. So, we do a little bit of everything really.
Elizabeth: Yeah. Very clearly. So, you must have issues when it comes to prioritizing sort of categorization because you're all over the map. You're not really sticking to one type of heading. Can you just speak a little bit to what you've experienced when you're trying to categorize these books?
Patricia: It's important to us to make sure that they're categorized as Indigenous. So, that's usually the first code that I use when I'm entering it on the BiblioData forms. Up until now, we've been pretty much stuck with the term Native American, which doesn't apply at all. Our authors aren't American and we don't tend to use the term Native. That tends to be more accepted in the States. So, I usually start with the closest I can get in terms of an Indigenous coding. And then after that, we usually enter three codes of the BISAC codes. And then I'll go into something like territory if that's relevant or just general adult fiction or whatever the age range is. Sometimes, if it's worth putting in that it's a humour book, then we're using separate codes. But again, I think it's of priority importance to us that we do make sure they are identified as Indigenous voices, because that that's a very important part of what we're doing. A lot of Indigenous culture and language has been lost of course over this, over the years, and what Kegedonce does is very important, is help preserve a lot of that. So, it's the most important category that we have.
Elizabeth: It is. And I'm glad you brought up the importance of terminology and how Native American does not apply to our market at all. So, how would you define terms Aboriginal and Indigenous? Because as you know, well, within the BISAC, Aboriginal, mostly pertaining to Australia, so that's their chosen terminology, but it's quite frequent in, the BISG subject heading. So, how would you, in terms of Canadian usage define the two terms?
Patricia: I don't define the term Aboriginal. I don't use it. As far as I understand it, just about every Indigenous person I've met does not like the term and would probably like to see it fall out of use. The government still uses it. But as, from my experience speaking and working with Indigenous people, Indigenous is the term that we prefer to use in Canada. It refers, usually used with a capital letter, refers to First Nations, Inuit and Métis, so people who have an ancestry in North America predating European colonization. So, those are the terms that we use. There's another sort of distinction in that, sometimes we haven't identified as Indigenous Canadian, a lot of Indigenous people who would prefer to make a minor distinction that it's not necessarily Canadian, but in the territories of Canada or in Canada, there are a number of First Nations that never ceded sovereignty to the Canadian government, and there are a number of Indigenous people who therefore don't really consider themselves Canadian even though legally and territorially that's where they are. So, Canada's or in Canada is probably more relevant, or at least more widely applicable, like I guess you might say. So, that's sort of where we reach out. We are a Canadian-based publisher, so we reach out to Indigenous authors in the territories of Canada.
Elizabeth: And that's a very important distinction to make, is that the desire to indicate regionality over sort of the colonizing aspect. And have you been using, yes. And have you been using Thema at all, which is much more fluid when it comes to stating region?
Patricia: Yes, I do. The way that I use the codes, I start with BISAC, I find the codes that I find most applicable in BISAC and then I will go over to a converter online for BISAC to Thema. Often, I find that there aren't corresponding terms in Thema. So, sometimes I'll leave them blank. So, I do insert some Thema codes. I don't use it as much and it's not... I guess because I don't start there, I haven't found it as detailed as the BISAC listing.
Elizabeth: Which is interesting.
Patricia: In terms of how we've been working, and then, you know, perhaps I should look into this, been we've been working with primarily with the BISAC and then using it to draw Thema codes.
Elizabeth: Yes. And that's, it's very interesting that you mentioned that because Thema in the way it's designed is meant to be much more flexible in terms of identifying region or nationality or even just works. It's more of a tree thing than BISAC. And it's interesting that you find BISAC is covering more. This is a conversation. I'm enjoying this.
Patricia: It's interesting. It comes to me from how I was trained by the previous marketing assistant and that was just sort of a habit that I've gotten into. I suspect then that I should be exploring more to do with Thema and see if it might be more useful for us. But in either way, the forms that we fill out for Literary Press Group ask us for the BISAC, three categories for BISAC and three corresponding categories in Thema. So, that's how we're asked to fill out the forms.
Elizabeth: Oh, I see. But that's wonderful that both are included because yes, both should be included. One does not cancel out the other, but in terms of where they're used and which markets to access, it's very important to have both. So, if we're going to go to big sky ideas in terms of, especially in the Canadian market, because, you know, it's our market. We love it. What terminology would you love to use? So, and, I mean, this in terms of like within the different headings, so like cooking or education or things like that. Like, where would you love to see more codes that reflect the sort of content that you're putting out? What would make your life significantly easier?
Patricia: Oh, it would be so much easier if we could just have Indigenous as a main category and then all of the subheadings like, you mentioned.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Patricia: I mean, that's kind of pie in the sky. I'm not really sure if there are any other cultural groups where they go into that kind of detail. Typically, like I said, what I do is usually start with the first code saying Indigenous literature of some kind. If I'm able to say Indigenous Fiction, I don't know. The codes you mentioned are Poetry, Juvenile Fiction and Juvenile Non-Fiction. I didn't see. Are there other ones for Indigenous General and Non-Fiction? Is that...
Elizabeth: So, not yet. This is something that'll be ongoing for us. And this is why we're accruing feedback because we want to take it to the BIC committee and say, you know, "These are the rising trends in Canada. This is important to Canadian publishers. We need to look at the terminology again." Because Native Canadian, we knew we had to get rid of it and we got rid of it wherever we could find it. But in terms of adding in Indigenous codes, specifically, because Native American is so accepted in the States and it served their market so well, to change it is a bit of a difficult sort of pickle because it's...
Patricia: Yes, of course.
Elizabeth: So it's really sort of trying to explain how it can serve both markets, and we have to make sure that, you know, the Native Americans down south feel the same as we do in terms of, because, I mean, they have, the example that's brought up constantly is in, again, in Australia, Aboriginal is the preferred term and to leave it out is problematic. So, you don't want to kind of have a universal term if it's not going to serve the populace. So, it's sort of sticky, but this is why we want to get the conversation talking and we want to hear back from those using and finding and struggling, trying to best, you know, represent these authors and their works because it's very important to be discoverable. And, yeah.
Patricia: It's good to be able to acknowledge that the terms are different from nation to nation and that, you know, Canadians are able to use their own terms within Canada. As far as a lot of Indigenous people are concerned, the distinction between the US and Canada as a colonial thing.
Elizabeth: Very much so.
Patricia: Their nations are very different. So, yeah. And, you know, of course, that's the other thing. And again, I don't know how detailed, for example, other cultural groups go, but when we talk about First Nations, we're talking about dozens of different nations and languages. So, First Nations people will identify as Indigenous because it's a useful overarching term, but personally they'd rather identify as Haudenosaunee or Cree or Tanaka or whatever it is, you know. So I don't know whether, and again, there's so many of them, so it probably can't go into that kind of detail.
Elizabeth: Well, that's what we're exploring. And, I mean, it's the same thing too is it's when the works come out in different languages, like in Cree and then maybe a certain dialect of Cree, like you want to be able to represent that and it... Yeah.
Patricia: It would be nice because this is another thing, it's very, very important for Indigenous people to preserve language. So much of it has been lost. So, if there are books, and some of our books do have partial translations into Indigenous languages or at least they have a use of certain terms or words in Indigenous languages, it would be nice to be able to indicate what language is being used in there. So, obviously, there's most probably about 70 different languages, so we probably couldn't do all of that. But as I understand it, there are 10 language groups that might be possible categories. Now, I've done a little bit of research on this, but I don't know whether these categories, these 10 language groups are categories that come from Indigenous people themselves or whether it's another colonial kind of research thing. So, we'd have to know. I mean, colonialism is so, it's so persistent. We don't want very often don't think about it. But when we talk about these sorts of things, this is why I like to make sure people understand that I'm not Indigenous and I'm representing Kegedonce because I'm doing the, because I'm familiar with the code. It is important to listen to Indigenous voices. And so, you know, those 10 language categories, if they are appropriate to the people that they represent, perhaps they might be potential categories to use within these codes for coding literature. Because it could be very important if we're addressing our books to readers of those languages, it would be a way for them to find these books. So, we published a poetry collection last year in 2018, from a Cree artist, and she uses a lot of the Cree words. But there really wasn't a way to put into the coding that there was Cree culture and language in the book. So, it'd be nice if it were at all possible. Those are kind of, again, pie-in-the-sky kind of ideas. Yeah.
Elizabeth: But if we don't say it out loud, you don't ask you, you don't get an answer.
Patricia: Yeah, you gotta ask. If you don't ask.
Elizabeth: Yeah. You gotta do it, though.
Thank you to all who spoke with us. It's a busy time of year and we really appreciate the time and consideration you put into answering our questions. If you're an industry professional who has made it through this episode and suddenly have thoughts, questions, or constructive feedback about using BISAC or Thema to best represent Indigenous works, please leave us a comment or email us at biblio@booknetcanada.ca, which is in the show notes or Tom Richardson at trichardson@booknetcanada.ca. He said it was okay.
And that's all I have for you today, but before I sign off, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge that BookNet Canada staff, board, partners and our makeshift podcast studio operate upon the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, the Anishinaabes, the Haudenosaunee, Wendat and Huron Indigenous peoples, the original nations of this land. We endorse the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and support an ongoing shift from gatekeeping to space making in the book industry. And we hope that our work, including this podcast, helps to create an environment that supports that shift. We'd also like to acknowledge the Government of Canada for their financial support to the Canada Book Fund. And of course, thanks to you for listening. Until next time, I'm Elizabeth Barker, wishing you a good read.
5 questions with Sarah Vasu from Caitlin Press.