An Irvine man has been left bewildered after the town’s library decided to integrate all of the books from the dedicated Science Fiction section to the ‘General Classification’ collection.

Andrew Shand has been a regular visitor to Irvine Library for four years and noticed that something was awry when he saw one of the librarians moving books around.

“I’m stunned, he said. “In my lifetime I’ve used 20 different public libraries and I’ve never known one that didn’t maintain a separate section for science fiction.

“They’re marmite books, if you’re into science fiction you love them and you look out for them and if you’re not you wouldn’t pick one up.”

Andrew, who moved to Irvine from Bristol a few years ago, added: “I do not understand the logic of it because people who are interested in science fiction are used to going to the science fiction shelves.

“For people who are not interested in science fiction then it’s cluttering up the general classification shelves because you’re either into science fiction or you’re not!.”

A North Ayrshire Council spokesperson commenting on the matter stated: “We are constantly looking for ways to promote all sorts of reading genres to readers who would never see themselves as a reader of a specific genre, like science fiction or fantasy.

“We use our library management system to monitor levels of interest and there has been a change in demand for science fiction.

“By integrating science fiction and fantasy titles into our general collection we hope that browsers will come across them and be stimulated enough to borrow.

“We will also be circulating them into our programme of themed book displays and hope this will attract new readers as the current approach is evidently not working.

“We will continue to monitor how our readers respond.”