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I have received many helpful replies from my query about fiction and
non-fiction books.  I have included a couple in this “hit.”  The main
consensus is that plays, poems, fairy tales, etc., are really fiction, but
are filed in the Dewey Decimal categories by form or because they are a part
of the culture of a country or region.  I think the two explanations below
probably sum up my answers very well.  Thanks to you all.

Mythology is ancient religion. Fairy and folk tales and legends are not the
fictional works of authors, but cultural heritage transmitted orally for
generations. Poems and plays are literary works, classified by form. There
is a Dewey section for "novels" but they shelved separately for patron
convenience.

Melvil Dewey intended for every book to have a Dewey number but we
librarians pulled out novels (and sometimes short stories and biographies)
and used a combination of letters as the call number such as F LOW for a
fiction book by Lois Lowry. We could have easily placed it in 813 LOW for a
fiction book written by an American author or 843 for a fiction book from
Germany but we found it difficult to sometimes locate the national origin of
the author. We would generally have only books either written in or
translated into English so we just pulled them all out and interfiled by
author since it didn't matter where the author was from or what the original
language of the novel was. That is why you find folk tales, poems, etc. with
a Dewey number...he designed it that way. I also explain that they need to
verify with their teachers when they are assigned a non-fiction book. Did
the teacher simply want a book shelved in the non-fiction area or do they
really want an information book. Most likely, they want an information book
so the student has to know the difference.

The video that I referred to was Charley Chapters in All You Need to Know
About Books.  It is a cute 9 minute video from Media Inc., Box 496, Media,
PA 19063.  Their phone is (800) 523-0118.  The video has two parts:  the
first part is about parts of a book, the second about three types of books:
fiction, nonfiction, and picture books.  I thought it did a good job of
explaining, but maybe is a little pricy at $225.  We belong to a consortium
who buys videos for many schools, so maybe it wouldn’t be bad in that
instance.

Thanks everyone for your help.

Kathleen

Kathleen Williams
USD 454 School Librarian
Burlingame, KS
kwilliams_46@hotmail.com

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