How to Find a Nonfiction Book at the Library

Non-fiction books at the Austin Public Library are shelved according to the Dewey Decimal System. Books are shelved numerically, that is, in number order, and are put into one of ten broad categories:

000 Computers, information & general reference
100 Philosophy & psychology
200 Religion
300 Social sciences
400 Language
500 Science
600 Technology
700 Arts & recreation
800 Literature
900 History & geography

The ten major areas are then broken down further into sub-categories. If looking for a book about the Sun, you would look under the 500s, the science category. Going deeper into the 500s, the 520s deal with astronomy, and getting more specific, the 523s deal with celestial bodies. Finally the 523.7s are books about the Sun.

After searching the library's catalog and finding the book you want, be sure to write down all of the call number. Examples of call numbers are 823.73 Ab or 791.43 R484e. Also note which library location owns the book. STACKS means that the book is not checked out, and should be in the library. To find that book about the Sun, follow the 500 shelves, past the 501s, 502s, 510s, until you get to the 523s. Now we move on to the number after the decimal.

Decimal numbers? I don't do math! Don't worry because it's all in numerical order. After the 523s begin the 523.1s followed by 523.2 then 523.3, and so on, until you reach 523.7. Once you reach the 523.7 area, look at the rest of the call number. For our example we'll say the author of the book is Wilson, so the last part of the call number will be Wi as in 523.7 Wi. Once you reach this point in the call number the books are shelved in alphabetical order by the author. A book by Standish (St) will come before the book by Wilson (Wi). View this slide show tutorial to find more about the Dewey Decimal System.