The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading

Censorship is the act of controlling what information is made available to a population by limiting the public’s access to certain media and communications. This is done with the goal of suppressing ideas or information deemed subversive to the public good or inconvenient to some public or private authority. Typically, this is done through preventing or limiting the publication or distribution of material such as books, films, documents, and more that is labeled offensive or harmful. Censorship has been enforced countless times throughout history and across the world by political leaders, governments, religious institutions, and private entities. Any form of censorship is antithetical to the founding principles of the United States, particularly the freedom of speech and the press guaranteed by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Despite this, recent years have seen a drastic shift in favor of censorship in certain conservative circles in the US, and right-wing activists have undertaken concerted, organized efforts throughout the 2020s to ban books and other media that does not align with their own convictions.

The Dewey Decimal System, or Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), is a library classification system that was created by Melvil Dewey (1851-1931) in 1876. It is used to organize collections of books by topic and is by far the most popular library classification system in the United States. It is important that librarians are familiar with this system, which is one of the earliest topics covered in library science degrees and qualification courses. The classification system works by assigning a numerical code to books based on their topic, with the first numbers corresponding to broad categories that are then narrowed down and specified by subsequent digits. The numerical classification functions as a shorthand for identification and location, making it simple for patrons to navigate the collection and for librarians to stock new titles within the existing framework. The DDC is currently on its 20th edition, with updates ensuring that the system remains up to date and functional in the modern era. There are both full and abridged versions of the system, too, which makes it adaptable to suit libraries of all sizes.

A genre is a subsection of literature that shares similar characteristics. The four main literary genres are fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry. These genres can be further subdivided into innumerable narrower genres based on form, theme, target demographic, and other features. Examples of different genres include fantasy, young adult (YA), autobiography, epic, etc. In bookshops and libraries, books are often organized into sections based on their genre categories to make navigation easier for patrons. Genre fiction specifically refers to fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific genre to find a ready and established audience in fans of the genre. Some of the most common types of genre fiction are mystery, horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and romance. Though the descriptor is itself value-neutral, it can be used derogatively and interchangeably with “popular fiction” to distinguish such works from more prestigious “literary fiction.”