ABSTRACT
Public libraries have, for decades, divided their stock into ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’, with not only separation on the shelves but in many cases different borrowing regulations also. Implicit here, perhaps, is a value judgement, with fiction being regarded as a slight indulgence and non-fiction reading as a commendable activity. There are certainly practical reasons for this separation. Since the highest proportion of books borrowed from public libraries are fiction, it is convenient to group them together. The remaining categories, using Melvil Dewey's classification, are non-fiction, although they contain several sections which bear considerable relationship to fiction, such as poetry, plays, myths and folk-tales, which all offer aspects of the literary experience, and which are dealt with elsewhere in this encyclopedia.
