Using the New Card Catalog Program to Find Books in Our Library
1. Go to the library web page and click on the Card Catalog button
2. Into the Search box type in your search term and choose to search “Anywhere,” “Subject,” “Title,”
or “Author.” In the example below, “basketball” was typed into the search box and “SUBJECT”
was chosen as the search type.
3. Books with basketball as the subject are listed. Each listing includes the Call Number to help you
find the book on the library shelves and a green box if the book is available or a red box if the
book is out of the library. For more information about the book, click the Details icon, shown in
the red box below.
4. The Details button shows an expanded description of the book, generally including a summary,
table of contents, reviews, chapter excerpts, etc. Reading the summary, for example, will
quickly tell you whether or not this book contains the information you’re looking for or the
entertainment you’re seeking.
5. Use your ID Card to check books out of your library.
6. The card catalog program can also search the databases for you. In the example below, “mitosis”
was typed into the search box and “SUBJECT” was chosen as the search type. It returned the
following screen
7. The blue box tells you that this is an online resource. Clicking the link takes you to the “Cell
Division” portal page of the Science in Context database.
To find books in the library, look at the Dewey Decimal System number (known as the Call
Number) and Cutter in the book’s record in the Card Catalog (shown in the red circle below). In the
example below, 796.323 is the Call Number and FEI is the Cutter. The Cutter is the first three
letters of the author’s last name, in the example below, FEINSTEIN.
The Dewey Decimal System
000 – Generalities, How To
100 – Philosophy
200 – Religion
300 – Social Sciences
400 – Language
500 – Science
600 – Technology
700 – The Arts & Sports
800 – Literature
900 – History
The books on the shelves are in numeric order following the Dewey Decimal System. Because
there may be many books with the same Dewey Decimal number, books with the same number are
put in alphabetical order by Cutter (the first 3 letters of the book’s author’s last name; shown below
the Dewey Decimal number; see the red circle above).
There are two important exceptions to this rule.
Most books of fiction, or novels, use FIC as the Call Number. The cutter is the first three letters of
the author’s name (KIN for Stephen King). The fiction (or FIC) shelves of the library come before
the 000 section. Books of fiction, are in alphabetical order by the author’s name (a novel by Peter
Abrahams is at the beginning and a novel by Markus Zusak is at the end).
Biographies use B as the Call Number. The cutter is the first three letters of the subject’s name
(KEN for John Fitzgerald Kennedy). The biography (or B) shelves are in the 900 section (between
919 and 920). Biographies are in alphabetical order by the subject of the biography (John Adams is
at the beginning and George Washington is at the end).