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Information Books
Peggy Heeks
DefinitionsPublic libraries have, for decades, divided their stock into ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’, with
not only separation on the shelves but in many cases different borrowing regulations
also. Implicit here, perhaps, is a value judgement, with fiction being regarded as a slight
indulgence and non-fiction reading as a commendable activity. There are certainly
practical reasons for this separation. Since the highest proportion of books borrowed
from public libraries are fiction, it is convenient to group them together. The remaining
categories, using Melvil Dewey’s classification, are non-fiction, although they contain
several sections which bear considerable relationship to fiction, such as poetry, plays,
myths and folk-tales, which all offer aspects of the literary experience, and which are
dealt with elsewhere in this encyclopedia.
Throughout their history, information books have been concerned with more than
delivering facts, and this point will be discussed later in this chapter. The term
‘information books’ has its limitations, but it is the term most widely used in the field of
children’s books, as publishers’ catalogues and library shelves show.
Just as there is some ambiguity about definitions of information books and non-
fiction, so there is a need to examine the distinction between facts, information and
knowledge. Facts are raw data. Facts are processed to provide information—for example,
chronologically in dictionaries of dates, geographically in guidebooks, by both systems in
railway timetables. The processing makes the accessing of facts easier. Knowledge arises
when intelligence and understanding are brought to bear on the information. The
distinction is lost when, as has happened in some curriculum statements, ‘knowledge’ is
confused with remembrance of facts. A Language for Life was helpful in this respect.
It is a confusion of everyday thought that we tend to regard ‘knowledge’ as
something that exists independently of someone who knows. ‘What is known’ must
in fact be brought to life afresh within every ‘knower’ by his own efforts.
Department of Education and Science 1975:50One cannot, therefore, equate information with knowledge. Information books serve as
the tools which can help readers to knowledge.