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.
| 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... |
| Boolean Operator | Examples | Results |
AND |
children AND poverty |
AND combines different terms when both must be present. Use AND to narrow a search. |
OR |
children OR youth |
OR combines terms when at least one must be present. Use OR to broaden a search. |
NOT |
java NOT coffee |
NOT eliminates irrelevant terms from a search. Use NOT when you want to exclude all records that contain a certain term. |
