The Collections of the Public Library of Catasauqua total over 18,000 items: Books, magazines and DVD’s.

The print collection of materials is organized into areas of Fiction and Non-Fiction for Adults, Young Adults, Juveniles, Children. There are also specific areas for Large Print, Biographies, Magazines and DVD’s for both adults and children.

The Library makes every effort to provide patrons with an excellent selection of current best-sellers. The Library purchases every new work of fiction of several contemporary authors who have a popular following. The Library also purchases non-fiction works that are considered to have made an important contribution to contemporary thinking.



Non-fiction is literature that deals with or offers opinions or statements based upon facts and  includes biographies, histories and essays. Most Public libraries organize non-fiction using the Dewey Decimal System, which uses general numbered headings such as the 200’s for Religion, the 500’s for Science and Math, the 800’s for Literature and the 900’s for History.  The Library Staff is always available to help patrons navigate the system to find the information they need.


Fiction is literature in the form of prose, especially short stories and novels, that describes imaginary events and people. As a category, fiction takes many forms, among them: Science fiction, mysteries, romance, magic realism, legal thrillers, medical thrillers, westerns, historical fiction, biographical, ethnic, adventure, fantasy, detective, crime, and horror. Fiction may be primarily entertaining, but it may also be deeply affecting and thought provoking. One of the notable features of classic fiction it that is has stood the test of time. There are many literary prizes that are awarded each year for outstanding works of fiction, the Nobel Prize in Literature being the most famous and most prestigious.


A biography is the story of a person’s life in the words of another person, while an autobiography is the story of a person’s life in his own words. A biography is typically written in third person, while an autobiography is typically written in first person. Biographies are non-fiction works that arranged alphabetically by the subject of the biography and within the subject alphabetically by the author when there is more than one work on a particular person.  The Library has many biographies about the same individual.  For example,  we have more than a dozen works on various members of the current British royal family.