News Releases
MAY 20, 2025
Why Non Fiction?
BY SIMON M.
The importance of Non Fiction collections!
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As a kid, non-fiction meant boring. So, it’s with great irony that I write this as a non-fiction collection specialist.
My parents invested a small fortune on what felt like innumerable Encyclopaedia Britannica’s. I can still picture their uniform burgundy leatherette covers with gold-stamped titles and volume numbers, and the density of the text inside. Even now, my first instinct at their memory is to yawn. This is how I saw the non-fiction collection at the library—but on a grander scale. No thanks! And besides, I had Encarta '95; that lone CD granted me what I assumed was infinite knowledge.
Then, of course, the internet became prevalent, promising a space for bottomless discovery, of expanding one’s understanding of everything and anything. Supreme knowledge was a mouse-click or keyboard-clack away. Then the internet evolved into its current state; a hub for misinformation, where anyone can publish content without fact-checking or accountability; where algorithms prioritise attention-grabbing headlines over accuracy. A simple search will lead to hundreds of contradictory answers. It’s both overwhelming and unreliable; vast and chaotic.
Contrast that against the calming experience of walking into your library, where the non-fiction books you peruse, across all subjects, are written by experts, vetted by editors, and selected by librarians—or collection specialists like us—who care deeply about quality and accuracy, and readability.
In a world of shallow, and often completely misleading information, non-fiction books provide depth, reliability, and focus; a way for readers to grow personally, or gain a deeper understanding of the world. And they’re accessible. Publishers have adapted to their evolving readership; the lexical density of those Encyclopaedia Britannica’s from my youth has been replaced with punchy sentences; complicated subjects rendered simply and compellingly. Thanks to Neil deGrasse Tyson, I can hold my own in a short discussion about astrophysics! Who would’ve thought?
These books cater to inquisitive people who want to learn, but don’t necessarily have a background in a subject. And in a library, the only cost of entry is one’s own curiosity. A willingness to open their minds.
How special is that?
Cheers,
Simon
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