[Publib] It's a fiction that there's fiction in Dewey

[Nann Blaine Hilyard]

When I was in grade school I wondered that, if non-fiction is true and
fiction is not-true, then why are fairy tales in the non-fiction?  And
if Laura Ingalls Wilder's books are the story of her childhood, why
aren't they in the biography section?    (I now know the reasons for
both, but no one explained it to me then.) 
 
Didn't we classify Alex Haley's "Roots" in 920 when it first came out?  
 
Nann
@ZBPL 
(yes, I've read "The Ghost in the Little House," about Rose Wilder
Lane's 'assistance' with her mother's books)
 

________________________________

From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Dale McNeill
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 4:21 PM
To: Peter Bromberg, SJRLC
Cc: publib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Publib] It's a fiction that there's fiction in Dewey


I think we (librarians) and teachers need to do a better job in general
of expalain "fiction" and "non-fiction".  I've heard (as a customer)
quite a few lessons and tours in which a librarian or teacher says
something like "non-fcition books are true".  At some philosophical
level, that might be true, but there are an awfully lot of books (and
other materials) in classified as non-fiction that aren't "factual".
There are plenty of examples in most libraries in the 800s. But there
are also many books that are not "factually" true, though the author may
believe them to be true.  Or books that were "true" when written, but
are no longer so.  I've always tried to say something like "in this
library we put novels and short story collections in "fiction";
everything else is "non-fiction".  And then I talk about humor, comic
books, plays, and so forth.  Once one has learned "non-fiction is true"
it's hard to unlearn it! 
 
Dale

 
On 3/5/07, Peter Bromberg, SJRLC <bromberg at sjrlc.org> wrote: 

	It's a fiction that there's no fiction in Dewey, and that's a
fact.  (Or
	should I say it's a non-fiction...?) 
	
	Anyhoo, according to the OCLC Dewey Summaries posted at:
	
http://www.oclc.org/dewey/resources/summaries/deweysummaries.pdf, 813 is
	reserved for "American fiction in English".
	<snip>
	

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/publib/attachments/20070305/41b43dc8/attachment.htm