ARH 390: Experiential Exhibiton Design - Cywin: Find Books

Here's a quick guide on how to read call numbers in our library (and most other academic libraries).

The first line is read in alphabetical order.

• ex. This would be before the PQ's but after the PM's.

Read the second line in numerical order.

• ex. This would be after PN 6746 and before PN 6747.1 or PN 6748.

The third line is tricky. Read the letter in alphabetical order then the number as a decimal.

• ex. PN 6747 .S245 would come before PN 6747 .S5, because .5 in decimal is really .500!

Sometimes the fourth line will look like this and you read it exactly like the other line.

• ex. PN 6747 .S245 P4713 would come before PN 6747 .S245 P8, because .8 in decimal is really .800!

When you see a line near the bottom that looks like a year, it is a year! This goes in numerical order.

• ex. If there was a book just like this except the date was 2003, it would go before the 2007 edition.

You could think of a call number like a detailed address in reverse: planet, country, state, city, street, street number. Each line helps you narrow down the book's exact location!

Use the search box below to run a quick search for books, or use the advanced search page to limit your material type to books prior to searching. 

Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, directors, Beauty and the Beast, 1991, Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Pictures, animated gif, http://gph.is/1LrGJRy.

Our library uses the Library of Congress Call Number Classification System to organize our books. If you know a little bit about what the call numbers stand for, you can browse the stacks more efficiently. 

Here are some relevant call numbers for this class and what they represent.

3rd Floor: 

N - Visual Arts

N 400 - N 3990: Art museums, galleries, etc.

N 4390 - N 5098: Exhibitions

NA - Architecture 

NA 2400 - NA 2460: Museums. Exhibitions

NB - Sculpture

NC - Drawing, Design, Illustration

ND - Painting

NE - Print Media

NK - Decorative Arts

NX - Arts in General

NX 420 - NX 430: Exhibitions

5th Floor:

AM - Museums. Collectors and collecting

TK - Electrical engineering. Electronics. Nuclear engineering

TK 5105: Web design

Click here to see a more thorough explanation of the call number system.