PLUG-INs A Student’s Guide

to Information Literacy

CALL NUMBERS How to find a book in the library

Where is it ? Which shelf

is it on?

You look for the CALL NUMBER.

How do you find a book

in the library?

What is a CALL

NUMBER?

It is a book’s address on the library shelf.

It is on a small white sticker.

Look on the thin side (or spine) of

a book to see the CALL NUMBER.

Letters come first.

At HCT, a call number has

both letters and numbers.

Of course, the letters are in alphabetical

order.

Do you remember

the Alphabet Song ?

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

For example, “D” is for

books about history.

Other books on the same

subject will be nearby.

The letter in a call number

is like a neighborhood.

Books with “QA” come

before books with “QB” and

so on.

For example, “QA” are

the letters for books about computers.

Sometimes, there are 2 letters.

This is not difficult. The numbers are

in normal order.

But, what happens next

is a little confusing.

After the letters, there

are some numbers.

Do you remember

decimals from your math

class?

Look at the 3rd line of this call number.

You see a dot. This is a decimal.

QA 76.H222006

Did you guess

0.2116 ?

So, on the library shelf, 0.2116 comes before

0.22

In decimals, which number

is smaller 0.22 or

0.2116 ?

The letter with the decimal

number usually is the first letter of the author’s last

name.

Sometimes, there is another line of decimal numbers.

QA 76.H222006

The last number is the year the book

was published. QA 76.H222006

Sometimes a call number has the

word “Reference” under the year.

This means that the book is in a special section called the Reference Section.

Reference books must be used

in the library only. They cannot be

checked out.

QA 76.H222006Reference

It tells you about the

AUTHOR’S LAST NAME.

It also tells you WHAT the books is

about.

To conclude, a call number tells you WHERE a book is in the

library.

And, it tells you WHEN the book was published.

But, what about Fiction books ?

What about Graded Readers ?

WOW ! That’s a lot of information in one number.

Fiction and Graded

Readers do not have full call

numbers.

Books in the Fiction Section are in alphabetical order by

the author’s last name.

If the author is Brad Pitt, the book will be in the P section.

For example, if the author is Robert Adams,

the book will be in the A section.

Yellow is Elementary

or beginning.Blue is

Intermediate and orange is

Advanced.

Graded Readers are shelved by

level.

A Big Secret is filed under B.

For example, The Long Road

is filed by L

Graded Readers are then filed by the first letter of

the title after “the” or “a.”

Only one more thing about

finding books in the library.

This means that all A books, all B books,

all C books and all D books through DH will be on this

set of shelves.

On the side of a library shelf, you

will see some letters, for example

A- DH.

Ask your friendly librarian if you

have any questions.

Thank you for listening.

HAPPY READING

!