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February 10, 2008
Misuse of language in the library service
Christopher Hawtree writes
"Another word which bedevils libraries now is to call non-fiction "information books". A horrible term. Gibbon did not sit down to write an "information book", nor did Richard Dawkins.
Information is not the same thing as knowledge."
- And information and knowledge are not the only reasons for writing and reading books. They are not even the most important ones.
Posted by Perkins at February 10, 2008 3:20 PM
Comments
perhaps it is a gibbon who is now responsible for the reclassification of non-fiction to "information books"?.
Posted by: peg harker at February 10, 2008 3:38 PM
Hampshire County Council makes a similar assumption in its Library Scrutiny Report, in that it views libraries as places where people can "find stuff out". This leads the report to the implied conclusion that books in libraries are optional, because this "stuff" is available on the internet and that it's high time the old fogies realised it, as do the young. The report does not really acknowledge books as a source of sustained reading - for pleasure or for wisdom. Maybe that's because not a single councillor on the Scrutiny panel appears to be a book-reader.
Posted by: Amanda Field at February 10, 2008 6:00 PM
And it is not only libraries... Borders has at last got a Biography section in Brighton, and next to it is a section headed "Real Lives" (all those endless accounts of rotten childhoods and drug addiction). I said to one of the staff, "does this mean that Virginia Woolf and Nelson had 'false lives'?" and he said, "I don't like the expression either, and I think the market for it will fizzle out."
Posted by: Christopher Hawtree at February 11, 2008 9:42 AM
I agree, should we not be educating the public about fiction and non-fiction rather than just renaming things? It smacks very much of 'dumbing down' so that we do not offend people.
Even with the advent of the internet, there are still some people who prefer to consult a book rather than a computer screen.
I think this is yet another phase, which will fizzle out eventually and calling non-fiction "non-fiction" will become the norm again.
Posted by: Tinkerbelle at February 12, 2008 11:47 AM
Where I work, the Reference Library is now called the Study Centre, because there are more computers than books. It's taken me over a year to get used to calling it that.
Posted by: Karen at February 12, 2008 2:53 PM