[at-l] Re: at-l Digest, Vol 3, Issue 30 Library Truth or Err or

[nealb at midlandstech.edu (William Neal)]

Because it was not written as fiction.  And it is a "valuable" item in the
non-fiction area of para-psyhchology -- even if para-psychology is not true.
Classifying something as "non-fiction" and as "fiction" has nothing to do
with what's in it so much as what the intentions of the authors was.  And
even then, if the work was published as "non-fiction" to begin with, it is
likely to stay in non-fiction. 
 
Suppose you wanted to disprove para-psychology.  If the works dealing with
para-psychology were all fiction, how would you find them?  You could not
unless you knew every title.  And that way, you might miss the most
important titles for your research.  
 
Dewey is sert up for pop-reading.  So it often shuffles works into fiction,
biography, and other works that do not fit into non-fiction.  And those
works often do not have subject-headings.  So a speculative work on chaos
theory could end up in fiction.  
 
Lord of the Rings is fiction.  The Bible is non-fiction. To some people
works on Evolution deserve to be in fiction and Creationism in non-fiction.
But both (in Dewey) are placed in non-fiction. The Library of Congress
classification scheme does away with seperate headings for non-fiction and
fiction.  It catalogs "everything" in letters from A to Z.  And thus is
easier if you really want to do research and do not want to just bolster
your prejudices or to write a quickie term paper.
 
Also remember what today is supported as the truth often was not the truth
in the past.  Library classifying is not meant to support one viewpoint or
the other.  Library classifying is meant to give you a chance to research
and decide what the truth is.
 
William, The Library Turtle

-----Original Message-----
From: Bror8588@aol.com [mailto:Bror8588@aol.com]
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 3:05 PM
To: at-l@mailman.backcountry.net
Subject: [at-l] Re: at-l Digest, Vol 3, Issue 30 Library Truth or Error


In a message dated 7/16/03 10:23:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
at-l-request@mailman.backcountry.net writes: 




And "The Search For Bridy Murphy" still belongs under the non-fiction 
headings even though it is now known to be a hoax.  Which is why LC 
cataloging is better for serious research and study and Dewey is better for 
pop reading. 

William, The Library Turtle 




This mystifies me (a lot of things do for that matter).  What is the reason
for including a fantasy (The Search for Bridey Murphy) in the nonfiction
category?  Has it risen to the category of Theory as in the Theory of
Evolution?  Is it a Hope (oh please let it be so that I can return and do
this life thing over again)?  Is it Future Science (someday it MAY be true
so we might as well categorize it as such now).  But then, where would we
stop?  Better to search for truth and change the categories when truth
emerges than to categorize fiction as truth and confuse everyone. 

Oh thanks be to the Trail, which includes, in our day, the opportunity to
contemplate the mysteries of life.   

Skylander Jack 



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