Keys To The Library (1951)

Here is a large community college. Perhaps it is something like yours. If you are a newcomer to the campus, you will spend a great deal of time in orienting yourself, discovering of classrooms, the bookstore, the student union, and other points of interest. You may even want to try out the athletic facilities such as the swimming pool. One of the most important units of the campus, and one which you will sooner or later find essential, is the library. The size, scope, and resources of your library may be widely different from this one, but the methods and techniques of using any library are very similar. All libraries have books, magazines, both current and back issues, pamphlets on current topics, encyclopedias, and other reference tools. Many libraries also have audiovisisual departments featuring photograph records, slides, films and other equipment. Listening rooms are also considered an essential part of the modern library. The question is, how can you, a new student, use the library to best advantage? In other words, what are the keys with which you can unlock the library's resources? The key to the rooms in the library is a floor plan. Ask for a copy or draw one yourself. Find the card catalog, the reading rooms, the circulation desk, the offices, and the book stacks. The key to the books in the library is the card catalog, which indexes alphabetically all the materials in the library. Suppose you need they came here first by McNickl, and you know the author's name. Go to the M tray of the catalog and look for the card listing this author under his last name. Here it is. Now, examine this card in detail for a moment to see just what it tells you. The number in the upper left hand corner of the card is vital since it identifies the book and gives a clue to its location in the stacks. This is the call number. The decimal number on the top line classifies the book by subject. This scheme of decimal classification invented by an American librarian Melville Dwey is now used in most libraries. By this system, all fields of knowledge are arbitrarily divided into 10 main classes. It might be well for you to memorize these 10 main divisions. For instance, the book you are seeking is classified in history 900 in the subsection 970 North America. The lower half of the call number known as the author number is used in some libraries in order to bring together all books with the same decimal number into alphabetical order by author. What else does the author card tell you? First the full name of the author and his date of birth. Then the exact title of the book, the place of publication, the name of the publisher and the date of publication. The next line describes the book physically. For example, the number of pages, the its size and illustrations. At the bottom of the card is the tracing or the list of other cards filed in the catalog for this book. If you had known only the title of this book, they came here first, you would have gone to the tea tray of the catalog. Here is the title card. If you had forgotten both the author and title of the book, but remembered that it was something about American Indians, you would look under that subject in the catalog. But wait, this card tells you that books on American Indians are listed under the subject Indians of North America. So you now go to the eye tray of the catalog. Here you will find many books on this subject, including the book you want. Notice the subject is typed in red. Now write down the call number 970.1 M2 so that you can find the book in the stacks. Don't trust to memory. Then find the general location of the book stack. Now look along the stacks in numerical order until you find the right section. Here you will find the 970.1s shelved between 960 and 973G. And here in order by number and then by author are all the books in the library on the subject of North American Indians. L1 L2 M1 and The Book You Want 970.1 M2 They Came Here First by Darcy McNichol. Of course, the book may be in circulation. If so, you may find another one equally good on the same shelf. You may have to go back to the card catalog and start again. If you don't find just what you want in books, perhaps there will be some up-to-date brief material available in pamphlets. A card such as this refers you to the card index of pamphlets. Pamphlets are usually filed alphabetically by subject, either in Princeton files such as these or in large file cases like this. The key to magazine articles is the reader's guide to periodical literature and other printed indexes which regularly index many magazines by subject on your subject of Indians. Here is a good article which you should be able to find through the reader's guide. Sure enough, by looking in a recent issue of the reader guide under the subject Indians subhead civilization, you find this listing in abbreviated form. It tells you that the article has illustrations and maps, the name of the magazine, the volume number, the inclusive page numbers, and the date, October 1950. Copy down all this information before you ask for the magazine. This is a list of all the magazines indexed in Reader's Guide, but you must find out if this particular magazine is in your library. Here you see that the library does subscribe to natural history. Your library will probably have the back issues bound in annual volumes. Twice a month reader guide is published in small paper covered issues like this. Then at frequent intervals larger numbers include several previous issues as well as new articles. These are called cumulated numbers. Once a year all the numbers are combined into one large volume. At intervals these annual numbers are combined into still larger volumes covering from 2 to 5 years. Remember, in searching for current topics in the reader's guide, start with the latest paper covered issue and work backwards looking in every one. For topics relating to a particular period, look in the volumes covering those dates. For example, for articles on the transatlantic flight of Charles A. Lindberg in 1927, you would look in volume 7 covering the years 1925 to 28. Many libraries have a complete file of the reader's guide dating back to the first issue in 1900. Your library may have some of the more specialized magazine indexes such as industrial arts index, education index and international index. The arrangement and method of publication of all these is similar to that of reader guide. The key to brief introductory information on any subject is an encyclopedia. The Encyclopedia Britannica is kept up to date by annual yearbooks. And the same is true of the Encyclopedia Americana. Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia and the World Book feature a simpler, more readable style and many illustrations. The Lincoln Library is typical of a one volume encyclopedia. Don't forget to consult the index volume of your large encyclopedias. Here, for example, if you are looking for picture writing, you find a reference to pictography. And under pictography, you find that there is material in volume 15. Here in volume 15 of the Americana under the subject of Indians American is the article on pictography which you found listed. The key to words their derivation spelling pronunciation and meaning is the dictionary. Two large unabridged American dictionaries are Funkin Wagnel's new standard and Webster's new international. They contain information not only about words but about people, places and historical events. The arrangement of the text in the two unbridgeidge dictionaries is different. In the new standard, all words including proper names and places are listed in one alphabet. The most current meaning of each word comes first with other definitions listed in order of use. In Websters, each page is divided into two parts. The less common words are listed below the line and the words in current usage above with definitions of each word in historical order, that is the oldest meaning first. Abbreviations, persons, places, and new words are listed in separate sections in Webster's. You will also find many smaller dictionaries such as the college editions of Webster and the New Standard, the American College Dictionary, Winston's, and others. The key to information about people is a biographical dictionary. For well-known Americans no longer living, look in the dictionary of American biography. For Englishmen no longer living, use the dictionary of national biography. For present-day personalities, there are many sources. For Englishmen, who's who? For Americans, who's who in America? For world personalities currently in the news, try current biography and world biography, among many others. Will these keys be helpful in using your library? Remember, learn the location of the rooms in the library. Go to the card catalog to find books or pamphlets, to the reader's guide or other printed indexes to find magazine articles, to the encyclopedia for quick reference, to the dictionary for information about words, to a biographical dictionary for short articles about people. And when in doubt, ask your librarian. The keys are yours. Use them. Your library stands ready to help you whenever you need information or a book to read for pleasure. These words of Thomas Ampus are good to remember. If thou wilt receive profit, read with humility, simplicity, and faith, and seek not at any time the fame of being learned.