Short Story Collection

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Short Story Collection

1coventryp
Nov 12, 2019, 2:33 pm

I was cataloging a book of short stories about real life women innovators. I placed it in the short story collection, but was wondering what other librarians think. I was told it was non-fiction and therefore didn't belong in the collection. I work at a high school library. Any input would be appreciated.

2lilithcat
Nov 12, 2019, 3:14 pm

If these are short biographies or essays, then they belong in non-fiction.

3MarthaJeanne
Nov 12, 2019, 4:20 pm

It would really help if you told us what book this is.

4coventryp
Nov 13, 2019, 10:08 am

The title is Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History. But the question was more about whether a short story collection has to be strictly fictional short stories.

5MarthaJeanne
Editado: Nov 13, 2019, 10:23 am

Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History

If you look at the tags here, nobody has tagged it 'Short Stories'.

If you look at the LoC Subjects https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchCode=GKEY%7C*&searchType=0&re...
They have not included Short Stories.

Wikipedia defines short stories as prose fiction that can be read in one sitting.

Britannica, Cliffs Notes and several dictionaries concur.

The chapters of this book are short prose, but are not fiction.

6lilithcat
Nov 13, 2019, 10:19 am

>4 coventryp:

Short stories are, by definition, fictional.

What you have there are short biographies. It's non-fiction.

7coventryp
Nov 14, 2019, 3:25 pm

Thanks everyone for the input. I guess it is just how my brain works. Stories can either be fictional or non and short just describes their length, but you can't argue with the dictionary!

8RowanTribe
Nov 14, 2019, 7:08 pm

Think about it this way; in general, cataloging deals with CONTENT, not FORMAT.

So Persepolis and Maus are both nonfiction/biographies, while Rapunzel's Revenge and Mousegard are fiction - despite all being graphic novel/comic format.

Same with picture books, large print, or audiobooks.

With "short stories" - the format you're thinking about is a "themed collection of short narratives," but that format can be fiction or nonfiction or biographical, and should be cataloged as such.

9riaanw
Jun 16, 2020, 6:02 am

Looks like most libraries have catalogued this title as nonfiction under 305.430922.