How are Biographies and autobiographies arranged on library shelves?

Answer 1

[The first answer was deleted as it was completely irrelevant to what the question was asking.]

Biographies are arranged to the biographical subject's last name. Remember, we are not sorting it according to the author's last name. The subject is the person who the book is about.

For example, these would be the order of biographies. I could use actual books, but I want you to get the idea:

Adams, John

Adams, John Quincy

Franklin, Benjamin

Gandhi, Mohandas K.

Herzl, Theodore

Hitler, Adolf

Jackson, Andrew

Jefferson, Thomas

King, Jr. Martin Luther

Luther, Martin

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano

Roosevelt, Theodore

Shakespeare, William

Washington, George

Do you get the idea? I hope you did. If you need any further help, please ask a follow-up question. Thank you.

Answer 2

Biographies and autobiographies are usually arranged alphabetically by the last name of the person they are written about. Autobiographies can be categorized under the author's name if they are writing about themselves, while biographies are categorized under the name of the person being written about.

Answer 3

There are two basic philosophies about this: either group all biographies together, or classify them according to the topics to which their subjects are most relevant.

For example, Library of Congress classification reserves ML410 for biographies of individual composers, and Dewey classification reserves 780.92 for the same.

The advantage of this method is that a biography of Beethoven will be in the same area as a book about his symphonies, or the scores of his symphonies themselves. Also, if there is a separate music library, it is easy to tell what range of classification will be in that location (for LC, classes M, ML, MT; for Dewey, the 780s); all the music books will be under those classifications.

On the other hand, many public libraries (especially smaller libraries where the entire collection is accessible on one floor of a facility), and school libraries, may find it better to group all biographies together, alphabetized by the subject's last name. Dewey classification reserves the numbers 921-928 as an optional location for biographies grouped this way, and many Dewey libraries simply classify all biographies under "B" or some other locally-determined moniker, then file by the subject's last name.

The advantage of this method is ease of browsing and self-serve access for users whose reading interests are not as subject-specific, and especially for K-12 students who frequently have to select a biography for a book report.

Answer 4

it will be organized by the first three letters of the authors last name

Answer 5

Biographies in libraries usually have their own little section within the books. They are located with the non-fiction and are divided by author according to the Dewey Decimal System.