Currently there are a large number of non-fiction titles being published that are written and marketed exactly like fiction.  They often have plot and offer a reading adventure.  They have tension and mystery or promise thrills and spills.  Starting with Dava Sobel’s Longitude the approach has developed a very successful way of interesting new readers in wide range of subjects. 

The covers of these books are indistinguishable from fiction titles.  The reviews on the back are similar in approach, emphasising the kind of read you might expect, rather than the subject covered. The books often cover more than one subject and take a different approach to it. They want to draw the reader in, to offer exploration rather than study.  .  They aren’t primers and they aren’t text books - you don’t have to want to study the subject to read these books. They are good reads in themselves, aimed at the curious reader.
The main method of offering non-fiction to the borrower is the Dewey Decimal system.  This system enables us to classify and find books in a wide range of subjects.  It does not help readers find something new to tempt them to explore a new subject.

Clearly libraries need a system to help them shelve the majority of non-fiction.  But what about the anomalies?  What about the books that fit into more than one classification?  We can all think of a non-fiction title that has got lost in its classification and could find a much wider readership if shelved differently.

Browsing readers find Dewey difficult, just as they find A-Z difficult.  However, we do not have to redesign the whole library to meet the needs of browsers.  We just need to choose the right range of non-fiction titles and make a prominent and colourful space for a promotion.