To use the Call Number to find the book on the shelf, you need to know how to read it.

To begin, start with the first letter or letters - in this case, PR.

Books are arranged in alphabetical order so PR is near the end of the P section. B comes first, then PA, and so on. Some letters may be skipped. As you can see in the graphic below, for example there is no PV nor PW.

When you are in the PR section, look at the next part of the Call Number - the numbers on the next line - in this case 4571.

Read this as a whole number. So go to the PR 4500 section and keep moving until you find the PR 4570s section. Then find the PR 4571 section. Often the number you are looking for will land between a range of other numbers on that shelf. As you can see in the image above, in this case, PR 4571 falls between PR 830 and PR 6039, so this is the shelf you will find your book.

Once you find the area with books assigned the Call Numbers PR 4571, look at the next line of the Call Number.

Read ".A1" alphabetically, then read the "1" as a decimal. So find PR 4571 .A1.

Usually that is enough, but if you need to, you can continue reading any additional lines of your Call Number in the same way. The next line of our Call Number is a year (1993), and these are arranged chronologically. So as you can see it comes after 1990.

For more detailed information on finding a book in the Library, see opens new windowHow to Find a Book on the Shelves.