Publishers’ Policy in Selecting the Subject of Printed Books for Children and Young Adults and their Subject Analysis based on the Dewey Decimal Classification in 1981-2021

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Information Science, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Department of Information Science, Faculty of Education Science and Psychology, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran.

3 Department of Information Science, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Alzahra University Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Objective: By publishing books on various topics, publishers can increase the richness of their publishing collection. Among the types of publishers, children's and youth book publishers, considering the importance of this era, play a significant role in nurturing and developing the imagination of children and youth and satisfying their sense of curiosity by publishing books in various fields. The purpose of this study is to determine the policy of publishers in selecting the subject of printed books for children and young adults and their subject analysis based on Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) in 1981-2021.
Methods: It is an applied research, which has been done by a mixed approach, that is the combination of two sets of quantitative and qualitative approaches. In the quantitative approach for the thematic analysis of adolescents, books based on the Dewey Decimal Classification in the period of 1358-1394, a library study method has been used. To study the Subject selecting policy for publishing, of child and adolescent books by publishers, rising from a data approach grounded theory has been used. For the thematic analyze of children and adolescents' books, the list of printed cataloging sheets of the published books of publishers in the National Library and Center for the Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents were studied. In addition, in order to study the publisher's subject selecting policy, Semi-structured interviews with 12 publishers were conducted together with qualitive textual data analyzing three stages of coding. The results of the topic analysis of children and adolescents' books were analyzed quantitively by using Excel software.
Results: The results of this research showed that during the period of 1981-2021, the published books in category 890 (category of Persian literature) were the most frequent ones. By reviewing the content of the books, it was revealed that social and religious subjects have been a favored by publishers and subjects in scientific, ethics, education, psychology and reference books were less favored by publishers for publishing. Moreover, the community's choices and favorite subjects were always considered by publishers. The result of the research showed that the factors, that is, subject selection, policy and planning, subject trends, interaction and communication, and attitudes and views points of publishers were effective in choosing the subjects by publishers.
Conclusion: The findings of the study illustrates the status of the publication of children and adolescents' books on various topics over the past three decades. By identifying the factors influencing the publication of children and adolescent books, it helps publishers, while recognizing these factors as well as challenges and limitations, to take steps to improve the status of children and adolescent book publishing and subject variety. The results of the study can help the government and publishers to support the publication of the book for children and adolescents by drawing the status of the publication of the book for children and adolescents and the factors affecting it.

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References

References
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Academic Librarianship and Information Research
Volume 56, Issue 4
December 2022
Pages 31-52

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