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Library of Congress (LC) and Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc)
Call Number Arrangement

The Library of Congress (LC) Classification

Chesnutt Library uses the LC classification system. Materials are organized into twenty-one broad subject categories. Each subject category is identified by a letter of the alphabet. Subclasses within each subject category are identified by a numerical notation. The next part of the call number is the book number and is unique to that work. The last part of the call number is the date, used to distinguish one edition from another.  

  • A -- GENERAL WORKS
  • B -- PHILOSOPHY. PSYCHOLOGY. RELIGION
  • C -- AUXILIARY SCIENCES OF HISTORY 
  • D -- HISTORY: GENERAL AND OLD WORLD
  • E -- HISTORY: AMERICA
  • F -- HISTORY: AMERICA
  • G -- GEOGRAPHY. ANTHROPOLOGY.
    RECREATION
  • H -- SOCIAL SCIENCES
  • J -- POLITICAL SCIENCE
  • K -- LAW
  • L -- EDUCATION
  • M -- MUSIC AND BOOKS ON MUSIC
  • N -- FINE ARTS
  • P -- LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
  • Q -- SCIENCE
  • R -- MEDICINE
  • S -- AGRICULTURE
  • T -- TECHNOLOGY
  • U -- MILITARY SCIENCE
  • V -- NAVAL SCIENCE
  • Z -- BIBLIOGRAPHY. LIBRARY SCIENCE.
    INFORMATION RESOURCES (GENERAL)
Library of Congress Call Number Arrangement:
LB 2376
.T35
1996 

The letter(s) at the beginning of each call number correspond to a main   subject and a subheading.  For instance, books with call numbers beginning with the letter L represents Education, LB represents Theory and Practice of Education.

The numbers that follow the first letter(s) further specify the subject area.  They are whole numbers; ones, tens, hundreds and thousands.  They may also be decimal numbers.

The next part of the call number is a letter-decimal combination designating the author and title of the book.  Be Careful! The decimal may not be printed as part of the call number!  Even though the decimal is sometimes not printed in the call number on the spine of the book, you must think of the number that follows the  letter as a decimal.  Therefore, T235 would precede T35.  

Finally, a copyright date is often included in the call number to distinguish different editions of the same book.

 

Superintendent of Documents (SuDocs) Call Number Arrangement

 

C 61.34:987

The SuDocs call numbers are assigned to government documents by the U.S.. Government Printing Office. These can be applied to paper documents, CD-ROMs, or materials on microfilm or microfiche.

  1. Author Symbol = C represents the issuing agency (Commerce Department)
  2. Subordinate Offices = 61. indicates the subordinate bureau within the issuing agency (International Trade Administration)
  3. Series Desigation = 34: is the number of the specific publication U.S. Industrial Outlook) 
  4. Book Numbers = 987; after the colon, the number that appears is usually a number that would identify a specific book, or be a number representing the series or the fact it was an annual; . 987 indicates the year of publication (1987)

1. Author Symbol.  Every executive department and agency, the Judiciary, Congress, and other major independent establishments have a unique alphabetical identifier. Documents will be found on the shelf alphabetically by this symbol.

  • A - Agriculture Department
  • AE – National Archives and Records
  • C – Commerce
  • C 3 - Census Bureau
  • CR – Civil Rights Commission
  • CS – Civil Service Commission
  • D - Defense Department
  • E - Energy Department
  • ED - Education Department
  • EP – Environmental Protection
  • FR – Federal Reserve System
  • FT – Federal Trade Commission
  • FTZ – Federal Trade Zone Board>
  • GA - General Accounting Office
  • GP – Government Printing Office
  • GS - General Services Administration
  • HE - Health and Human Services Dept.
  • HH – Housing and Urban Development
  • I - Interior Department
  • I 19. - U.S. Geological Survey
  • I 28 - Bureau of Mines
  • I 29 - National Park Service
  • IC – Interstate Commerce Com.
  • J - Justice Department
  • JU - Judiciary
  • L - Labor Department
  • LC - Library of Congress
  • NA – National Academy of Sciences
  • NAS – NASA
  • NS – National Science Foundation
  • P – United States Postal Service
  • PE – Peace Corps
  • PR – President of United States
  • S - State Department
  • SBA – Small Business Adm.
  • SE – Securities and Exchange Commission
  • SI - Smithsonian Institution
  • T – Treasury
  • T 22 – Internal Revenue Service
  • TD – Transportation
  • VA – Veterans Administration
  • W, X, Y – Congress
  • Y 1 – House and Senate Reports and Documents
  • Y 4 - Congressional Committees and Hearings

2. Subordinate Offices.  Numbers are added to the alphabetic identifiers to distinguish bureaus and offices within major departments. For example, the Agriculture Department as a whole is designated as A 1, but the Forestry Service is identified as A 13.  The Interior Department is I 1, but the Geological Survey is I 19, the Bureau of Mines is I 28, and the National Park Service is I 29.  The Treasury Department is T 1, but the Internal Revenue Service is T 22.

3. Series Designations. Each type of publication has an identifying number, and a colon follows this. Some of the more common types are:

  • 1: Annual Reports
  • 5: Laws (administered by the agency and published by it)
  • 8: Handbooks, manuals, guides
  • 10: Directories
  • 11: Maps and charts
  • 13: Forms

Note:  Parts 1, 2, and 3 of the SuDoc number is called the Class Stem.  

4. Book Numbers. The number following the colon of the Class Stem identifies a specific book, either by series number, annual number, or a number based on the subject of the title.

5. Related Series. A new series, which is closely related to an already existing series, will be placed next to the original on the shelf and differentiated from it with a slash mark and another letter or number.  This number also reflects the date of a title.