Call Numbers Explained

Book cover

Anatomy of a Library of Congress Call Number

The books in our library are shelved by call number using Library of Congress Classification.

Book title: Shakespeare: for all time
Author: Stanley Wells
Call Number: PR2894 .W43 2003

The first two lines describe the subject of the book.
 PR  = English Literature
 2894  = English renaissance (1500-1640)

The third line usually represents the author's last name.
W= Wells

The last line represents the date of publication.

Using the Call Number to Find the Book

 PR  Read the first line in alphabetical order:
A, B, BF, L, LA, LB, LC, M, P, PR...
 2894  Read the second line as a whole number:
1, 2, 3, 45, 100, 101, 1145, 2587, 2894...
 . W43   The third line is the trickiest part of the call number!
Read the letter alphabetically and the number as a decimal:
.W301 will come before. W43  (read them as .W301 and .W430)
 2003  The last line is the year the book was published. Read in chronological order:
1985, 1991, 2003, 2009...

Find Articles Faster: Boolean AND, OR, NOT

Boolean Operator Examples Results

AND

Boolean AND
children
 AND
poverty
AND provides results that contain both or all keywords. Use AND to narrow a search.

OR

Boolean OR
labor
 OR
labour
OR provides results that contain either keyword. Use OR to broaden a search.

NOT

Boolean NOT
Hawkeye
 NOT
Marvel
NOT provides results that contain the first keyword but not the second. Use NOT to exclude all records that contain a certain term.