Library of Congress Classification
Listed below are the letters and titles of the main classes of the Library of Congress Classification. Click on any class to view an outline of its subclasses.
B -- Philosophy, Psychology, and Religion
C -- Auxiliary Sciences of History
E -- History of the Americas (United States)
F -- History of the Americas (US local history, North America, Latin America)
G -- Geography, Anthropology, Recreation
Z -- Bibliography, Library Science, Information Resources
More Information
Books on LC Classification at the Whitman Library
Books on the history of the Library of Congress at the Whitman Library
What are Library of Congress Call Numbers?
Penrose Library organizes books using Library of Congress call numbers. Like Dewey Decimal numbers, Library of Congress call numbers act as a book's address on the shelf. Call numbers are made up of a combination of letters and numbers that represent specific subjects. Library of Congress uses the letters of the alphabet to represent broad subject categories and subdivisions. For example, J represents Political Science and R represents Medicine.
When you find a book you're interested in the catalog, you'll see a location and call number listed. Let's look at Hmong Means Free : Life in Laos and America, edited by Sucheng Chan. The call number listed in the catalog is DS558.8.H56 1994 is located on the 3rd Floor in the Book Collection. You can break this number into four separate pieces.
The first piece, DS, stands for the subject subdivision Asia -- History of the Vietnamese Conflict. Books are shelved first by this section of the call number, in alphabetical order.
The second piece of the call number is 558.8. This portion of the call number further pinpoints the subject, and should be read as a whole number. 558.8 comes after 558.22, and before 558.9.
The third piece of the number, .H56, usually represents the author. Because this book doesn't have a single author, the number represents the title instead. This section should be read alphabetically, then as a decimal number, not a whole number. .H56 will come after .H4 and before .H946.
The fourth piece, 1994, is the year the book was published, and it will not always be part of the call number.
On the Penrose Library shelves, Hmong Means Free is surrounded by these call numbers:
DS 558.8 .F68
DS 558.8 .F87
DS 558.8 .H56 1994
DS 558.8 .K66 2005
DS 558.8 .M53 1997
When you find a book in the catalog that you'd like to find, be sure to take note of the location and the entire call number. You should also check the status of the book, to make sure that it's available and hasn't already been checked out. When you walk to the shelves to find your book, you'll notice that there are call number ranges on each end panel. Find the range into which your number fits. DS 558 .H56 1994 will be in the range of shelving that is labeled DS 527.9 .C66 1998 - DS 650.3 .Z99 1988.
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Locations of Library Materials
Allen Room - 2nd Floor
Archives/Special Collections - 1st Floor
Atlases - 2nd Floor
Documents - 1st and 2nd Floor
eBooks (accessible online)
General Collection - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Floor
Juvenile - 1st Floor
Microforms - in Archives/Special Collections - 1st floor
Northwest Collection - 1st Floor
Oversize/Folio - 1st Floor
Reference - 2nd Floor
Reserves - Circulation desk
Serials - 1st Floor (some accessible online)
Video - 2nd and 3rd Floor
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