What is it?
Every book in our library has a unique call number, which is kind of like the book's address. We use Library of Congress Classification, which is different from the Dewey Decimal Classification used in most public and K-12 libraries.
Call numbers can be found in our catalog (usually written all on one line like GV950.7.C64 2013) and each matches a label on a book, usually on the part we call the spine and written like this:
GV950.7
.C64
2013
Call numbers help you find a particular book and also help us arrange all the books around it on the shelf.
What does it mean?
Library of Congress Classification is a way to group and arrange items by subject. The first part of the call number indicates a particular subject area, such as K for law, N for fine arts, and T for technology. Two letters means a topic is a subset of a bigger area. For example, Q is science and QL is zoology.
Football by Greg Colby has the call number:
GV950.7 - describes the subject of the book
.C64 - based on the author's last name
2013 - the year the book was published
Why should I care?
Now you can find books and know to look nearby for books that might relate to your topic! You can also tell right away if a book might be too old or outdated for your information need.
For more information, see our Finding Library Materials page.