Finding Books and Media on the Shelves

To find an item on the shelf, you need its call number. This number is usually found on a label on the spine of the item or the lower left corner of the front cover.

This is the address of each individual item in the library collection. It is similar to the address of a house in a town. Each house has a specific address (e.g., 121 Grover Street, Bigtown, Texas); each item has its own address, too.

ACC uses the Library of Congress system (and/or the National Library of Medicine system at EVC), which is a combination of letters and numbers (Example: NC 1075 .J4 B3). More about call number (classification) systems can be found in our guide, Library Classification System.

The items are shelved alphabetically according to the first letters of the call number and then numerically.