This month on the podcast, we’re talking about Thema and exploring how you can use this international book classification system to describe diverse books. Join BookNet Canada’s Marketing Associate Aline Zara, with appearances by EDItEUR’s Chris Saynor and BookNet Canada’s Bibliographic Manager Tom Richardson, alongside a worked example of Tanya Boteju’s book Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens, just in time to wrap up Pride month.
(Scroll down for a transcript of the podcast.)
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Further reading/listening
Chris Saynor’s Tech Forum presentation Using Thema and ONIX to boost discoverability
Tom Richardson’s webinar Thema Refresher
Transcript
Aline Zara: Welcome to this month’s episode of the BookNet Canada Podcast. I’m your host, Aline Zara, a Marketing Associate at BookNet.
In this episode we’re going to be looking at Thema, an international book subject category scheme, and how you can use it to more richly describe diverse book content. But what is Thema, anyway? How is it different from BISAC? Why would you describe a book in Thema if you’re already using BISAC to describe your titles? How is describing diverse book content in Thema any different?
Let’s start at the beginning.
What is Thema? Thema is a global classification system designed to support the international book trade. It started in 2012 and was initially drafted by over 15 different countries, including Canada. Thema is managed by EDItEUR, the same organization that manages ONIX for books, alongside over 25 National Groups and an International Steering Committee who work together to guide Thema’s development. The Thema National Group for Canada is organized by us at BookNet. So, if you’ve any comments or future suggestions for Thema, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
Thema is super robust. Currently, version 1.4 supports over 25 languages and has over 3,100 subject codes. Thema does have standard subject categories like BISAC, but it also has qualifiers — 5,100 of them and counting. These qualifiers can be used across subject categories to give deeper meaning, boost discoverability, and build a more complex look at a book’s subject matter.
Also unlike BISAC, Thema is a post-coordinated system. BISAC is pre-coordinated. It has codes and you classify a book according to those. For Thema, there are codes, but you can create deeper meaning and richer descriptions by putting multiple codes and qualifiers together.
Here in the Canadian book market, it’s no question that BISAC is our primary classification scheme. But what does Thema have to offer? Here’s EDItEUR’s Chris Saynor from his Tech Forum presentation last year on using Thema to boost the discoverability of diverse voices:
Chris Saynor: Well I'm talking to a majority Canadian audience, BISAC is well established in the US and in Canada, I assume most people know how to use it really well. I don't think I need to talk about it. It's not an EDItEUR standard, it's a BISG standard. And there are people who are far more qualified than I am to talk about BISAC. I wanted to talk more about Thema because it's our standard, it's a global standard outside the United States and Canada. It's now the standard that's used by most of the book trade, it's also different from BISAC. So BISAC is a pre-coordinated system. BISAC has a code that means one thing. Thema has codes, ready-made categories, as well but it's also a post-coordinated system. So that means you can create meaning by adding codes together. So you will send multiple codes but it also allows for a greater meaning to be created.
Tom Richardson: This is a strong statement.
Aline: That’s BookNet Canada’s Bibliographic Manager Tom Richardson.
Tom: This is a strong statement: BookNet Canada recommends using Thema because it provides superior national codes for Canada and because it's different. Thema’s strength lies in describing the book’s subject. If BISAC is ideal for describing where a book currently fits in the North American market, Thema excels at describing a book's subject. It is a much richer syntax available, can define time and geography accurately. And if you look at them and their strengths, BISAC and Thema are actually pretty complementary systems. And that's how I explain why you'll need to support both for the foreseeable future. It's good to have two systems. And Thema has potential. It has real potential in terms of being a better system for describing books.
Aline: And for boosting the discoverability of diverse book content, richer descriptions really are important. Here’s Chris Saynor again:
Chris: Well, as with everything to do with metadata, it's about communicating information. It's about giving the book supply chain — booksellers, librarians, educators, and the readers themselves — enough information so they can make informed choices, so they can find those books and they can decide which ones they want and which ones are relevant. And it's making sure that that information is available and used throughout the data supply chain.
Aline: So, how does this all play out for describing diverse content? Let’s take a look at an example together.
We’ll consider the book Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens by Canadian author Tanya Boteju, published by Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers.
Here’s the book’s description:
Perpetually awkward Nima Kumara-Clark is bored with her insular community of Bridgeton, in love with her straight girlfriend, and trying to move past her mother’s unexpected departure. After a bewildering encounter at a local festival, Nima finds herself suddenly immersed in the drag scene on the other side of town.
Macho drag kings, magical queens, new love interests, and surprising allies propel Nima both painfully and hilariously closer to a self she never knew she could be — one that can confidently express and accept love. But she’ll have to learn to accept lost love to get there.
Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens has also been given keywords by the publisher including: queer romantic comedy; coming-of-age stories; stories about first love; books about biracial characters; books about queer characters; and teen romance.
Between the description and these keywords, I think we have a pretty good overview of the subjects that are covered in this book.
In terms of BISAC subject codes, the publisher’s given Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens three:
YOUNG ADULT FICTION / LGBTQ+
YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Diversity & Multicultural
YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Romance / Romantic Comedy
So, what would the Thema classification look like? Remember that Thema is a post-coordinated system and that Thema codes and qualifiers work together to build understanding.
While the publisher has provided three BISAC codes for Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens, we’re recommending seven Thema subject categories along with three accompanying qualifiers.
First off, it’s safe to say that based on the book’s BISAC subjects, this book is targeted at young readers and it’s a work of fiction. So we’re going to start by using the Thema code “YFB – Children’s / Teenage Fiction: General Fiction”. If you remember the description, this book touches on romance and stories about LGBTQ+ people, so we’d suggest using the code “YFM - Children’s / Teenage fiction: Relationship stories – Romance, love or friendship” as well as the code “YXB - Children’s / Teenage personal and social topics: LGBTQ+”.
Relationships amongst family members and friends are important in this book, so to touch on both of those we’d suggest using the code “YXH - Children’s / Teenage personal and social topics: Relationships (non-family)” and the code “YXF - Children’s / Teenage personal and social topics: Families and family members”. If you’re keeping track, that’s five Thema subject codes so far and I promised you seven, so there’s two more to go.
Based on the second BISAC subject category chosen by the publisher “YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Diversity & Multicultural”, we would recommend using Thema’s code “YXM - Children’s / Teenage personal and social topics: Multicultural”.
The last Thema code we’d suggest is “FQ - Contemporary lifestyle fiction”. This one lets data receivers know that Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens could be classified as that romantic, uplifting comedy the keywords suggest it is.
Are you now getting a sense of how these subject classifications are building on each other to describe the topics of the book? The three Thema qualifiers we’d suggest continue to build on this foundation.
Like it said in the description, the story develops in Bridgeton, New Jersey, so to indicate that we’d want to use the New Jersey location qualifier “1KBB-US-NAJ”. Next, we suggest the qualifier “5AN - Interest age: from 12 years”, to let everyone know that this book is intended for readers 12 years and older. The third and final qualifier we’d recommend for Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens is the qualifier “5PS - Relating to LGBTQ+ people”.
You might be wondering — why use the LGBTQ+ qualifier if you’re already using the LGBTQ+ subject classification? Fair question. The short answer is that Thema qualifiers add another layer of understanding and help us give an even more complete picture of what the book is about. They also boost discoverability. By giving Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens the qualifier for LGBTQ+, we’re placing this book alongside all other books related to LGBTQ+ people, not just ones for young adult readers. Here’s Chris Saynor with more.
Chris: These qualifiers can be used with Thema for adult, children's books, for fiction, non-fiction. The whole point of Thema qualifiers is that if you're looking for all the books about Peoples of African Descent, you can find all of them or you can then sort of say I only want fiction that deals with this, I only want fiction that's set in Canada that deals with it, etc.
People are not so used to the notion of qualifiers. People who used to use the old UK-Australian scheme BIC, which also had qualifiers, are more used to it. So a lot of people are looking for just subject areas. So I think people are not as aware of the power of qualifiers and quite how much possibilities there are with the qualifiers. I mean as an ex-bookseller and talking to booksellers, the possibilities, the potential of creating searches with qualifiers, that you know you're looking for every book about Toronto, you're looking for every book about Indigenous people, and then you can use those qualifiers to do so much.
Aline: So, what does this all mean? For Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens, we’ve seen how much more fully you can describe the book’s content using Thema, but do you really have to use both Thema and BISAC to describe books? What comes next?
Chris: So, what next? I would suggest for those of you who want to go further as well as the BISAC codes start thinking about Thema categories and qualifiers. BISAC are really important in the US and Canada but Thema matters for the rest of the world. If you're Canadian, for example, I'm in London in the UK, we're very interested in books from Canada, make sure that you are using things that other people on this planet will want to be able to use to find your books as well. If you use Thema, if you decide to move to Thema, there are tools and mappings that you can do to automatically add Thema codes from BISAC. That's very good and I recommend doing that to get all your backlist up to date, but then I recommend that you start using Thema codes separately from BISAC. You look at BISAC, you add your BISAC codes, very important, but then you look at Thema and you add those as an independent action. Don't rely on mapping in the future because mapping from BISAC to Thema or Thema to BISAC, you lose out on the richness that both these schemes offer you. So you lose out on the potential to make the most of them. So start exploring Thema, have a look at the browser and the documentation.
If you want to be truly global and discoverable use both. It's very simple to add those. It just takes, you know it's a few minutes longer on each title or a few seconds longer on each title once you get used to it. So add both.
Aline: There you have it. I hope that this has inspired you to take a look at Thema’s potential for better describing diverse titles. A thank you to Chris Saynor and Tom Richardson — Chris’s Tech Forum presentation on Using Thema and ONIX to boost discoverability and Tom’s Thema Refresher webinar can both be found on our BookNet Canada YouTube channel. If you want more worked examples of Thema, look for our blog series Using Thema to identify diverse content in product metadata. You can find all these resources I’ve just mentioned, and more, also on our blog.
Before we go, 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 Anishinaabe, 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 through the Canada Book Fund. And of course, thanks to you for listening.
Sales and library circulation data of LGBTQ+ titles during the fourth quarter of 2024.