What
is a Call Number? Call
numbers serve multiple purposes. They are: - unique
identification numbers
- "codes"
that can tell you something about the subject of a book
- "addresses"
that tell you where a book is located in the library
A
book's call number will generally be printed on a label on the spine of the book.
Kinds of Call Numbers Two
main types of call numbers are used in Bell Library: Library of Congress (or LC)
numbers, and Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) numbers. Library
of Congress Call Numbers
Most academic and
research libraries in the United States use Library
of Congress (LC) call numbers to organize their materials. This system
uses a combination of letters and numbers to arrange materials by subject.
Because books are arranged by subject, you can often find several helpful
books near each other, even on the same shelf.
Call
numbers appear like this, top to bottom, on the spines of books:
BL
2525
.R4613
2000 Or
like this in the online catalog:
BL2525 .R4613 2000 To
read a call number, divide it into sections, line by line. For example:
- BL -- Read the first
line in alphabetical order (A, B, BF, BG, BL, C, CD...and so on).
- 2525
-- Read the second line as a whole number, in numeric order (2000, 2010, 2020,
2023, 2025, 2026, 2030...and so on).
- .R4613
-- The third line is a combination of a letter and numbers. Read the letter alphabetically
(L, O, Q, R, S, U...and so on) and the number as a decimal in numeric order (.46,
.461, .4611, .4613, .462, .4621, .47, and so on). In this example, .R4613 would
come after .P46 because P comes before R, but it would come before .R462 because
the decimal number .4613 is smaller than .462.
- 2000
-- This line is the year the book was published.
Putting
call numbers in order can seem tricky at first. Below is a list of call numbers,
with explanations of why they were put in the order in which they appear:
- BL2480 .Y6 B37
- BL2490
.D42 1970 (Starts with BL like #1 in this list, but 2490 comes after 2480)
- BL2520 .N4
(Again, starts with BL like #2, but 2520 comes after 2490)
- BL2525
.H39 1990 (2525 comes after 2520)
- BL2525
.L44 1993 (Starts with BL2525 like #4, but L comes after H)
- BL2525
.L567 2000 (Starts with BL2525 .L like #5, but .567 comes after .44)
- BL2525
.R4613 2000 (Starts with BL2525, but R comes after L)
- BL2530
.U6 U5 (2530 comes after 2525)
- BL2530
.U6 W87 (Starts with BL2530 .U6 like #8, but W87 comes after U5)
- BM156
.C453 1963 (BM comes after BL)
What do all those
letters and numbers mean? Remember that the LC
system arranges items by subject, so the letters and numbers that
form a call number are actually a type of code that can tell you something
about the main subject of the book. Look at the call number for Practical
Archaeology: An Introduction to Archaeological Fieldwork and Excavation,
by Graham Webster:
CC
= the broad subject of the book. CC is the subclass for works on archaeology.
75 = a more focused subject. This book describes how to do archaeological
fieldwork, so the number assigned is 75, which indicates the book is about archaeological
methodology.
.W4 = indicates something about the last name of the author
('W' for 'Webster').
1974 = date of publication. Return
to top of page Superintendent
of Documents (SuDoc) Numbers Publications
issued by the United States government are shelved according to a classification
system developed by the U.S. Superintendent of Documents. Like LC call number,
SuDoc numbers also begin with letters of the alphabet. In this case, however,
the letter stands for the name of the cabinet-level department or agency that
issued the publication. Some commonly used SuDoc prefixes are: A
- Agriculture Department
C - Commerce Department
D - Defense Department
E - Energy Department
ED - Education Department
HE - Health and Human
Services Department
J - Justice Department
Ju - Judiciary
L - Labor
Department
NAS - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
S - State
Department
SI - Smithsonian Institution
W, Y - Congress
The
numbers that come after the initial letter(s) indicate such things as the subagency
that produced the document, the series number, the year of publication, etc. It's
not important for you to know all of those things at this point. What is important,
however, is that you know that unlike the LC system, the SuDoc system does not
arrange items by subject first, so you won't be able to easily browse the shelves
as you can in the rest of the library. Instead the call numbers arrange items
according to the agency that produced the item. If
you have specific questions about the SuDoc call number system, we'll be happy
to try to answer them.
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Return
to Library Research Guide
We invite questions and/or comments and look forward to
hearing from you. Contact Edward Kownslar at Edward.Kownslar@tamucc.edu.
Webpage revised on
08/09/2007
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