Brian Deer Classification System

Xwi7xwa Library

Xwi7xwa Library, the library affiliated with First Nations House of Learning, uses the Brian Deer classification system. To learn about how the Brian Deer classification system stands up to daily use, we met with Ann Doyle, Acting Head Librarian.[28] Doyle has been at Xwi7xwa since 1996, but was originally hired as a systems librarian to oversee the integration of Xwi7xwa's collection into the UBC library system and catalogue. Because of the focus on systems issues for the first few years, Doyle has only recently had time to evaluate the Brian Deer classification system, and to consider it from a theoretical perspective.

Doyle feels that the key concept in the Brian Deer classification system is that it tries to acknowledge and represent indigenous ways of knowing. The intent is to represent the many realities of First People, within different contexts - community, regional, national, and global, for example. At Xwi7xwa Library, the collection is not intended to serve as a research collection; rather, it is an "action-based" collection, reflecting the ways in which First Nations people may use different materials. As such, the subject areas represented in the Brian Deer classification system used at Xwi7xwa are classified to reflect and support the actual activities of the users. Examples of such subjects areas are "land claims" or "economic development." An action-based collection reflects the social action within a community.

Doyle also points out that the Brian Deer classification system may not be suited to all First Nations contexts. Dewey Decimal Classification might be more appropriate for libraries that have varied collections, without a specific First Nations focus - for example, some reserve libraries support both the social action of their community and the general reading and information needs of a range of children and adult users. Brian Deer is most useful for collections that focus predominantly on First Nations topics and issues.

The collection currently held by the Xwi7xwa Library started out as the collection of UBC's Indian Education Resource Centre (IERC), established in 1974. The IERC materials were intended to support the Indian Education Program, now known as the Native Indian Teacher Education Program (NITEP). Gene Joseph began working with the NITEP collection in the early 1980s, and moved to Xwi7xwa with the collection when the library opened in the early 1990s. One of Joseph's initiatives was to develop First Nations subject headings for the NITEP collection. These subject headings were based on users' vernacular and also included concepts not treated in LCSH or Sears. Joseph was also the one who decided to use the Brian Deer classification system. It is Doyle's understanding that Joseph "adopted, but did not adapt" the Deer classification - that is, the classification system was implemented as-is, even though it was based on another collection (one of the collections that Deer worked with). Doyle suggests that Joseph's First Nations subject headings and later implementation of the Brian Deer classification system represent the first efforts at indigenous scholarship at UBC - Joseph's work represents pioneering attempts to classify and categorize First Nations knowledge.

One of the advantages of the Brian Deer classification system is that the schedule is quite simple. From the user's perspective, it is easy to learn how to use, and it may even be possible to memorize often-used class numbers. Even users without extensive experience in a library setting can easily learn how the Brian Deer system works. The simple schedule means that it is also fairly easy to catalogue using Brian Deer - that is, the cataloguer does not have to look in different volumes such as with the Dewey Decimal Classification.

Doyle started by pointing out that any way of organizing knowledge reflects a specific world view. Classification of knowledge necessarily imposes a culturally specific understanding on knowledge. Thus, the main classification systems in use in libraries, the Library of Congress Classification system and the Dewey Decimal Classification system, reflect the cultural milieu out of which they have developed - a western, rationalist tradition. In contrast, First Nations world views are not necessarily rooted in western thought. Thus the LCC and DDC systems are inadequate tools for classification if the overall objective is to represent a First Nations perspective or perspectives.

In order to understand what the Brian Deer system does well, it is useful to compare it to the Library of Congress classification system. Something that is obvious after only a cursory examination of the LC schedules is the fact that the language used to describe First Nations topics and people is problematic. Often, the terminology used is drawn from anthropology, and historical tradition is that anthropological studies of First Nations people have involved non-First Nations academics naming and defining First Nations people and concepts. Many of the First Nations-related terms in the LC schedules are not used by First Nations people to describe themselves, their activities or their ways of knowing. It would be better if the LC classes reflected the terminology that First Nations people actually use. An example of this are the names of First Nations groups listed in the E 99 sub-class. Several of the names are outdated and those specific groups or communities do not refer to themselves that way. For someone looking for materials relating to that group or community, the difference between that group's self-name and the LC-assigned name might constitute an access barrier.

One problem is that the Library of Congress Classification allows for only very limited treatment of topics specific to the context of First Nations in British Columbia. The only parts of the schedules that accommodate BC First Nations topics are the sub-classes E 78, E 98, and E 99. For anyone who has worked with First Nations topics in an academic library setting, these are the well-known "Indians of North America" sub-classes.

The problem with these sub-classes is that, while it is possible to class specific topics here, LCC does not support high levels of specificity demanded by a collection with a strong First Nations focus. For example, the sub-class E 78, "Indians of North America - By state, province, or region, A-Z," intersperses Canadian provinces with American states and other North American regions in a simple alphabetical list of cutter numbers. Xwi7xwa's collection focuses heavily on materials pertaining to British Columbia and to Canada. In the E 78 sub-class, materials from the different Canadian provinces would be shelved alphabetically between American states - so that Manitoba would come after Maine and before Minnesota. Material relating to Canadian provinces contiguous to Manitoba, such as Saskatchewan and Ontario, might be shelved quite a distance away, depending on the volume of American materials held in the library's collection. Anyone wanting to get an overview of the provincial perspectives on a particular topic would have to search for Canadian provincial materials among materials from the more numerous American states.

While it is apparent that the geographic focus of the Xwi7xwa collection is not supported well by the LC schedules, LC's shortcomings are further emphasized when collocation of topics within broad classes in Brian Deer is compared with the lack of this type of collocation in the Libary of Congress classification system. For example, BD classifies the different indigenous "nations" so that culturally similar groups have close proximity in the schedule. Thus Tsimshian is found in close proximity to Nisga'a, and this will be reflected on the library shelves as well. The principle of collocation also applies to First Nations topics and activities as they are represented in the BD schedule. For example, aboriginal rights and title relate somewhat to natural resources and natural resource management, so those two subject areas are next to each other in the schedule. Materials from these areas will be next to each other on the shelves.

The fact that LC resorts to cuttering alphabetically by North American region is an example of subject areas being drawn together in a manner that is not particularly useful to First Nations users or other researchers working with First Nations topics. But on a more conceptual level, Doyle argues that LC draws subject areas together in ways that do not at all reflect any existing First Nations world views. Many concepts or topics that are common to First Nations ways of knowing cannot be placed in the LC classification scheme. Examples of these are certain views in the areas of health or spirituality. But what does it matter whether or not specific First Nations-related concepts are represented in the LC schedules? The problem is that the act of "shoehorning" First Nations concepts into the classification scheme puts up barriers to access. The likelihood is that First Nations topics may be buried inside broader, general categories, or they may be classified with tangentially related materials. This would cause two types of problems for researchers - first, researchers might have to search through broad classes to find materials specific to First Nations in any subject area, and second, researchers might not think of looking in a tangentially related area for materials on a particular First Nations topic.

The use of language, the support for high levels of specificity, and the collocation of related subject areas are some of the most useful features of the Brian Deer classification system. However, the Brian Deer schedule currently in use at Xwi7xwa has several shortcomings - areas where it could use considerable updating, revision, and further development. One example of this is the "Curriculum Materials" group of sub-classes. Right now, curriculum materials are classed by education level only - kindergarten and pre-school; elementary; secondary; and adult education. Within these sub-classes, there is no separation of subject areas. This means that curriculum materials for secondary-level social studies are classed with science and language arts curriculum materials, with no subject specification - making subject access to curriculum materials more difficult.

Another aspect of the Xwi7xwa schedule to be developed is the treatment of First Nations scholarship. Doyle points out that First Nations scholarship has burgeoned only over the past 20-30 years. Prior to that, there were few First Nations students attending university, and fewer still graduate students and faculty. Without a critical mass in a certain area of scholarship, academic output in that area remains low. But from the 1970s onward, numbers of First Nations students and faculty have increased, resulting in a corresponding increase in First Nations scholarly publishing. Many First Nations scholars engage in reviewing and revising previous scholarship on topics relating to First Nations. Some of their work may be based on post-modern and post-colonial critical theory. But because the Brian Deer classification system was developed in the 1970s, prior to the establishment of a critical mass of First Nations scholars, this type of First Nations scholarship does not really fit into the schedule.

Doyle suggests that the Brian Deer classification system only partially achieves a representation of First Nations ways of knowing. It would only be possible to fully achieve such a representation by addressing it at the national level. This would entail the development of a Canadian national standard First Nations classification system and subject headings. Doyle does not think that the development work need necessarily be done by the "movers and shakers" of the Canadian library scene (e.g. the National Library and Archives, groups working under the auspices of national and provincial associations, or larger academic and research libraries). Instead, a Canadian national standard might grow out of a grassroots context, with contributions from and consultation with First Nations librarians, communities, cultural groups and organizations, and possibly First Nations scholars. Doyle suggests that such a national standard should be developed with First Nations users in mind, not necessarily from a research library perspective.

If such a national standard were developed, Doyle would like to see the standard integrated into the UBC library system, as other "alternative" standards are now. She envisions the integration of an alternate classification system being done much like the way Brian Deer is integrated into the current system - separate bibliographic records for items held in the Xwi7xwa collection, with Brian Deer call numbers. National standard First Nations subject headings would be integrated into all bibliographic records in the system, the way that Medical Subject Headings are used in the current catalogue - both for the items classified under LC, and those classified under Brian Deer. Integration of First Nations subject access standards would reflect the intellectual work required to conceptualize, develop, and implement alternative systems. It would validate the intellectual work of First Nations scholars and information theorists, and also validate indigenous world views and ways of knowing. Ultimately, such an integration would be implemented with the understanding that the very organization of information can serve as a specific presentation First Nations knowledge and culture.

Top | Previous | Next