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
A	The arts… See also: HPN “Aesthetics”	✽
AG	Art treatments and subjects… Note: with AG* codes, assign also the relevant code from AC “History of art / Art and design style” and/or from AF “Art forms”, as appropriate	✽
AGB	Individual artists, art monographs
AGC	Exhibition catalogues and specific collections See also: WTHM “Museum, historic sites, gallery and art guides”	✽
AGH	Human figures depicted in art…
AGK	Small-scale, secular and domestic scenes in art Class here: ‘genre’ subjects in art	✽
AGN	Animals and nature in art (still life, landscapes and seascapes, etc)…
AGP	Man-made objects depicted in art (cityscapes, machines, etc)
AGR	Religious subjects depicted in art
AGZ	Art techniques and principles Class here: textbooks and advanced level works on techniques, colour theory, perspective, etc. See WFA “Painting and art manuals” for hobbyist and ‘how-to’ manuals	✽

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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