BIC Subject Categories and Qualifiers

This is BIC’s Subject Categories and Qualifiers Scheme, version 2.1 released November 2010, the standard classification scheme for the UK book trade and some other English language markets, available from www.bic.org.uk.

Note that BIC has announced that there will be no further development of the BIC scheme, and that Thema is its preferred subject scheme for current and future use. Browse the latest version of the Thema international, multilingual subject category scheme here.

Code	Description
U	Computing and information technology…
UY	Computer science…
UYA	Mathematical theory of computation…
UYD	Systems analysis and design See also: GPFC “Cybernetics and systems theory”	✽
UYF	Computer architecture and logic design… See also: TJFD1 “Microprocessors”	✽
UYM	Computer modelling and simulation Use for technical and specialist works, inc those from other disciplines: statistics, engineering, etc	✽
UYQ	Artificial intelligence…
UYS	Signal processing
UYT	Image processing Note: use for general aspects of image processing, including standards, encoding and manipulation of data	✽
UYU	Audio processing Note: use for general aspects of computerized processing of audio data, including standards, encoding and manipulation of data	✽
UYV	Virtual reality
UYZ	Human-computer interaction…

An ellipsis indicates a category has more detailed subcategories
Click on a category description to reveal these ‘descendant’ subcategories
Indentation indicates the ancestors and descendants of a category
Click the ✽ to see or hide the usage notes
Search for categories (eg ‘celebrity’) using the search field at the top
- Searches are not case-sensitive
- You don’t need to use complete words (eg ‘celeb’)
- Multi-word searches return categories matching any of the individual words
- To search for all the individual words, use + instead of space (eg ‘art+history’)
- To search for an exact phrase, use underline instead of space (eg ‘women’s_health’)
Click on a search result category to see it ‘in context’ with its ancestor and descendant categories
A blank search returns you to the top level of the hierarchy
Read the latest BIC Subject Categories and Qualifiers Usage Guidelines (pdf, revised December 2010)

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