Anatomy of a Library of Congress Call Number
The books in our library are shelved by call number (in the stacks: the bookshelves in the Quiet Study Area), using Library of Congress Classification.
Book title: Discovering the Great Masters
Author: Paul Crenshaw
Call Number: ND1145 .C74 2009
The first two lines describe the subject of the book.
ND = Fine Arts
1145 = Painting
The third line often represents the author's last name.
C= Crenshaw
The last line represents the date of publication.
Finding Books on the Shelf
Read call numbers line by line.
ND
Read the first line in alphabetical order:
A, B, BF, C, L, LA, LB, LC, M, N...
1145
Read the second line as a whole number:
1, 2, 3, 45, 100, 101, 1000, 1145, 2430...
.C74
The third line is the trickiest part of the call number! Read the letter alphabetically.
Read the number as a decimal:
.C524 will come before .C74 (read them as .C524 and .C740)
Some call numbers have more than one combination letter-number line.
2009
The last line is the year the book was published. Read in chronological order:
1985, 1991, 2009...