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Physics

About This Page

The Claire T. Carney Library has an excellent collection of books on the sciences on the 5th floor.

You're welcome (and encouraged) to browse the books in person, but you also can plan ahead and see what our library and other libraries have from wherever you are. This page will help you with both approaches to finding books.

If there's a book you're interested in that we don't have, see the Interlibrary Loan tab for information on how to get it!

Reading Call Numbers

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

 

An image of a call number on a side of a book. An arrow points to the first line.

The first line is read in alphabetical order.

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

 

An image of a call number on a side of a book. An arrow points to the second line.

Read the second line in numerical order.

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

 

An image of a call number on a side of a book. An arrow points to the third line.

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!

 

An image of a call number on a side of a book. An arrow points to the fourth line.

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!

 

An image of a call number on a side of a book. An arrow points to the fifth line.

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!

Finding Books in Our Library

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. 

Thesis and Dissertations

UMass Dartmouth dissertations and thesis are online in our digital archives.  If you need one from 2016 or earlier, search the title or author in Primo.

Physics Thesis (online)

Finding Books in our Stacks

Just a few of our print and e-book titles:

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. All of the science books are on the 5th floor and have a call number that starts with Q. Here are the ranges that will likely be most useful to those interested in physics:

QB - Astronomy
QC - Physics

QC 1-75 - General
QC 81-114 - Weights and measures
QC 120-168.85 - Descriptive and experimental mechanics
QC 170-197 - Atomic physics. Constitution and properties of matter
QC 221-246 - Acoustics. Sound
QC 251-338.5 - Heat
QC 350-467 - Optics. Light
QC 474-496.9 - Radiation physics (General)
QC 501-766 - Electricity and magnetism
QC 770-798 - Nuclear and particle physics. Atomic energy. Radioactivity
QC 801-809 - Geophysics. Cosmic physics
QC 811-849 - Geomagnetism
QC 851-999 - Meteorology. Climatology

How to find print books we don't own

Subjects: Physics
Tags: physics

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