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Bronco Ready Library Guide

This guide is designed to help students succeed in their first year at Boise State. It contains information about library resources & services to help students become better prepared to use the library.

Finding Books in the Library Catalog Video

Finding Books in the Library Catalog Instructions

Image of the Search Box on the Books, Videos, and More page of the Boise State University Library Website. Arrow from "Book Title" OR Keywords in a Text Box to the Search bar.

  • If you know the title of the book you are looking for, type the title in to the search box on this page and make sure to put it in Quotations. That way the catalog will search for it as a whole rather than individual words. Then press search or enter.
  • If you are just looking for books on a subject, type in some keywords or key phrases and press search or enter.

Search Results list. Arrow from "Book Title" OR Keywords in a Text Box to the search bar. Another arrow from Filter for Books in a Text Box to that Limiter.

  • Once you have a list of search results, use the filter for books (which includes ebooks) to limit to just books and ebooks.
  • Follow the prompts to either access online, find out the physical location, or request it from Interlibrary Loan. 

Library of Congress Classification

The Albertsons Library uses the Library of Congress classification system to arrange books on our shelves.

The first two lines describe the subject of the book.  The third line often represents the author's last name. The last line represents the date of publication.

 

Tips for Finding Books on the Shelf

Call number 'LB 2395 .C65 1991' on the spine of a book and in the online catalog

Read call numbers line by line.

LB
Read the first line in alphabetical order:
A, B, BF, C, D... L, LA, LB, LC, M, ML...

2395
Read the second line as a whole number:
1, 2, 3, 45, 100, 101, 1000, 2000, 2430...

.C65
The third line is a combination of a letter and numbers. Read the letter alphabetically. Read the number as a decimal, eg:
.C65 = .65 .C724 = .724

Some call numbers have more than one combination letter-number line.

1991
The last line is the year the book was published. Read in chronological order:
1985, 1991, 1992...

 

http://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit03/libraries03_04.phtml