This special issue of Collection Building on the subject of non-fiction was motivated by a long-standing desire to understand how public libraries prioritise selection in a civil society context. The lack of discussion around fundamental conceptual modalities that underpin our representation of knowledge in these spaces has prompted this exploratory collection of papers. The contributors to this issue bring a diverse range of disciplinary viewpoints that include philosophy, sociology, history, communication, education and information science. The variety of perspectives we see here, it is hoped, will help to ensure that a start is made on bringing the complexity of what we ordinarily discuss, so easily and equanimously as non-fiction, into a richer, more diverse and problematised space.