MARLOW HEIGHTS — The Marlow Heights Public Library moved its entire self-help section into the fiction stacks Tuesday, a change announced in a one-page municipal memo that did not use the word “fiction” until its fourth paragraph.

The memo, circulated to library staff and taped to the inside of the restroom stall, described the decision as “a reclassification consistent with the evidence on file.” The evidence on file, according to the memo, is none.

“We reviewed the section the way we review any section,” said Head Librarian Dolores Penhallow, standing between The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and a hardcover about waking up at 4:30 a.m. “We asked what each book claims, and whether any patron has ever returned to report that it happened. In 31 years, nobody has.”

Penhallow said the review was prompted by a routine inventory in which a part-time page noticed that the same titles had circulated continuously since 1994 without a single patron appearing to have finished changing.

“A reference book is expected to be correct,” Penhallow said. “A novel is expected to be hopeful and loosely plausible. We felt the self-help section had always belonged to the second category.”

The 1,412 volumes were relocated over two days by a staff of three. Titles promising to “unlock your inner CEO” were shelved alphabetically by author between the works of a mystery novelist and a regional writer known for sagas about shipbuilding families. Books on decluttering were placed near the historical fiction, where, Penhallow noted, “they will feel at home.”

The change has already produced minor complications. Patrons seeking Atomic Habits are now directed to the A section of Fiction, where it sits beside Atonement, a placement staff described as “unintended but not unfair.”

“A reference book is expected to be correct. A novel is expected to be hopeful and loosely plausible.”

Dr. Hollis Verbeek, a senior fellow in applied shelving at the Tri-County Institute for Dewey Decimal Dispute Resolution, endorsed the move. “Under the Dewey system, the 150s cover psychology and the 650s cover management, and both assume a measurable result,” Verbeek said. “Where the result is a feeling that the author will be more successful next year, you are in the 800s.”

Reaction among patrons was mixed. Gary Tolliver, 44, who has borrowed the same book on morning routines eleven times, said he felt “seen, but in a way I’ll need to think about.” Another patron, who declined to give her name, said she had always read the section for the plot.

The library confirmed that the self-help section’s former shelving space will now house a small collection of books on home repair, which staff said they are “reasonably confident about.”

Penhallow declined to say whether other sections are under review, though she noted that a recent audit of the travel section found “several countries that looked much nicer in the photographs.”

The memo closed by thanking patrons for their understanding and reminding them that late fees on reclassified items will be calculated at the fiction rate, “which is the same, because we are not monsters.”