Which Dewey numbers correspond to Fiction?

Hey all, new member here!

I recently reorganized my book collection into two categories: Fiction (alphabetical by author or editor in the case of anthologies), and Non-Fiction (by Dewey Decimal Number). Overall this is working pretty well. However, there are a few books that I am unsure whether or not they'd be categorized as Fiction. I have their Dewey Decimal numbers, so I'm wondering which specific Dewey numbers I can pull out and automatically throw into my Fiction category.

I have searched here and on Google, and the closest answer I've found is that 813, 823, etc, through 883 are all Fiction. But this is not necessarily the case, as I have books like The Science of Stephen King (about fiction, but not fiction itself) which is 813.54, and literary criticism or ranking books (Top 100 Horror Novels) also have these numbers.

What specific Dewey numbers can I automatically pull out and classify as Fiction?

If you format Your Books so that the category Dewey Wording is showing, you will get a useful description corresponding to the Dewey number of the book you are looking at.

(If the description is green, this means it has been auto-generated - and can be highly unreliable!)

But if you then click on that wording, you will get taken to a tree-display showing how the Dewey sub-categories break down. It is not complete (some section headings are blank), but I find it very useful.

Roughly speaking:
8** = Literature
81* = American and Canadian Literature
82* = all other Literature written in English
813 = American/Canadian fiction
813.5 = American/Canadian fiction, 20th century
813.54 = American fiction, 20th century, 1945-1999

811 = books about American writing
sub categories of that are for the different types of writing being analysed.

So I would say that your Stephen king example is mis-classified.

But you cannot rely on 8*3 being "Fiction"

893 = Literature of Egyptian, Coptic and North African Languages
i.e. it is a subdivision of
89* = Literature of Other Languages (where "Other" covers languages not listed under 83*, 84*, 85*, 86* & 87*)

And Russian fiction is 891.73.

The system is fairly idiosyncratic in places. Unfortunately.

Most call number systems group "fiction" with "books about fiction" (which from a reference librarian's POV, makes sense - you want the books about Shakespeare to be right next to the books by Shakespeare.) So, yes, The Science of Stephen King and fiction by Stephen King would both be under 813.54.

I'm not sure where you're seeing the "books about American writing" for 811 - I get "literature - American and Canadian - Poetry" there on LT - but if you look at official Dewey tables offsite, 810 is just "American and Canadian literature in English" and 813 is American and Canadian fiction in English. It includes the thing itself and books about the thing.

It's useful if you're doing research for English class, annoying if you just want to find a good book to read. (This is why most circulating libraries with large fiction collections pull the fiction out into a separate collection entirely.)

Damn, so in other words there is no way just by looking at the Dewey number I can separate out Fiction?

How do circulating libraries pull the fiction out then? Or do they actually have to go through the contents of each book to determine whether it's fiction or nonfiction?

My local library uses Dewey for non-fiction, poetry and stories and the first letters of the name of the author plus 4 genre categories for novels. Which makes it pretty easy to figure out what is what.

Honestly, most public libraries I know of just go by whatever the publisher tells them when they buy the book. (I know, it's disillusioning.)

If they're getting used donations or buying older books, then yeah, they have professional catalogers who look at the book, research it, and figure out where it goes. Usually novels go to the "fiction" section, poetry and plays stay under their Dewey numbers, short stories are a crapshoot depending on the library's policy, and weird things that fall in-between fiction and nonfiction usually end up under the Dewey number in nonfiction, but sometimes there are exceptions. (Like, my library puts the Harry Potter play with the fiction instead of in the 800s with the other plays, because they know that's where people will look for it.)

You could try adding the "subjects" column to your LT catalog - that's the LoC subject headings, and for fiction the subject headings usually end with "-fiction", although some popular fiction doesn't have subject headings listed at all. It's not sortable, but it's something?

You can also try OCLC Classify, which lets you see what other libraries have cataloged a book under, and for fiction titles there's usually a lot that just have it under FIC as the call number.

And if it has any dewey number other than the 800s (or occasionally 090, which is for books as cataloged as art objects rather than by subject- I have some experimental small-press books and some special edition picture books that end up there) it's definitely non-fiction.

And if it has any dewey number other than the 800s (or occasionally 090, which is for books as cataloged as art objects rather than by subject- I have some experimental small-press books and some special edition picture books that end up there) it's definitely non-fiction.


There's also 398 for folklore, and 741 for graphic novels.

>7 lorax: Folklore is one of those tricky things, though, where the actual content is created rather than factual, but it's a cultural thing that a group of people put stock in, at least at one point in time. On my own shelves, I keep books of/on folklore, mythology, and religion in one section, as to me they're all the same basic thing.

Oh, right, thanks, I don't mentally class folklore as fiction so I didn't even think about it, but some fairy-tale and mythology/sacred stories retellings that are basically fiction sometimes go in the 390s or in the 200s.

(If you look at oclc classify, a lot of times those kinds of retellings don't really have a good consensus on cataloging. In my home library the sagas, legendariums, and fairy tales are currently in the "ugh, I dunno" pile until I figure out which section is going to have the shelf space for them...)

And I can't believe I forgot about graphic novels and comic strips! I used to live in the 740s at my local library until they finally caved and put the graphic novels on the fiction side.

And fiction that is meant for language-learning (like student editions that mix story text with grammar and vocab lessons) are sometimes under the 400s for language.

So I guess a) the dewey decimal system is not so much a system as a carefully organized mess, and for a lot of things the librarian or thingamabrarian just has to make a call, but b) probably over 90% of the time the Dewey number for non-graphical fiction will be in the 800s? And the ones that aren't are usually the ones that are slippery anyway.

"a carefully organized mess"

beautifully put!

probably over 90% of the time the Dewey number for non-graphical fiction will be in the 800s? And the ones that aren't are usually the ones that are slippery anyway.

I think that's right.

If I were doing this, I'd say "Put all the 8x3 and 89x in Fiction. Move any that seem wrong as you encounter them."

Melannen:

Thanks, that was quite helpful. It's rather annoying that there doesn't appear to be any kind of rigorous litmus test to separate fiction from non-fiction other than actual research of the contents... I suppose I'll just have to use my subjective judgment to discern what goes where.

As far as 813, I've discovered even non-fiction books that aren't about fiction in that category! Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk, a collection of non-fiction essays, is in 813, along with the non-fiction memoir The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll. An carefully organized mess, indeed!

If they're autobiographical essays, like the memoir they fall under the current rule that biographies are filed based on what the subject is noted for, so biographies of scientists go in the relevant part of the 5xx and biographies of American fiction writers would go in 813.

Thanks everyone.