How To Find Books (and Movies and Music)

For an in-depth look at how to find books, please see our step by step tutorial.

Books play an important part in any serious research effort. They provide a good overview of a topic and act as guideposts to find further, more specific information. As a Mantor Library Card holder, you have access not just to the books available in the building, but also the books available throughout the state of Maine and in many libraries across the nation. Searching these can be relatively easy. Just follow three simple steps. (They work for searching for movies and music, as well.)

Step 1: Have a Library Account

Before you start your library search, be sure you have your library card. For UMF students or faculty, this means you have a barcode on the back of your student ID. For community patrons, this means you have a card from the library or we've added a barcode to the back of your public library card. You'll need this barcode both to check out materials from Mantor Library and to request materials from other libraries. If you don't have one yet, come by in person to the front desk of although you'll have to have proof of ID and proof of your current mailing address with you.

Step 2: Search for a Book

The tool you'll use to do this is URSUS, the catalog for the entire University of Maine system, as well as a few other libraries, such as Bangor Public Library. Search for books in URSUS by keyword, title, author, or Library of Congress subject. A word of caution, however: because this is a shared catalog, you will find books in URSUS that are not physically located in Mantor Library. See Step 3 for how to locate the book you're looking for.

Step 3: Find a Book

Once you have located a book in URSUS, check to see that it is at Mantor Library by looking for FAR under LOCATION.   (The LOCATION also tells you the type of material it is.  You may see FAR Reference, FAR Juvenile, FAR Archives, and others. If the location is anything other than FAR, you will need to request the book. See here for more information on how to do this.)  Also take a look at the STATUS.  If it is AVAILABLE, the book should be on the shelf.

 

Write down the CALL NO. for the book.  The call number is like an address.  It tells you where in the library the book is located.  

 

The first step to locating this book is to determine on what floor of the library it is located.  Using the LOCATION and CALL NO. from URSUS, use the table below to find the floor you need.

LOCATION	FIRST LETTER OF CALL NO.	FLOOR OF MANTOR LIBRARY
FAR Stacks	A - L	Second Floor
FAR Stacks	M, N ,P	Book Basement
FAR Stacks	Q - Z	Mezzanine
FAR Juvenile	A - Z	3rd Floor
FAR Young Adult	A - Z	3rd Floor
FAR Reference	A - Z	1st Floor
FAR Archives	A - Z	See library staff

In the case of the example above, Canterbury Tales has the LOCATION of FAR Stacks and the CALL NO. begins with P, therefore, this book would be located in the Book Basement.

Once you are on the appropriate floor, the Library of Congress (LC) call number will help you locate the book. 

The Library of Congress system is an alpha-numeric code, combining letters and numbers. The letters range from A to Z and can be either a single letter or combination of letters. The second letter denotes a narrower division of the first letter. For example:

P (Language and Literature)
PR (English Literature)

On the shelf, A comes first, then AC, AE and so on until B; then BA, BB, and so on all the way to Z.

LC call numbers usually consist of three or four lines:

• The first line places the book on the shelf with books having similar subjects. Books are arranged alphabetically by the letter or letters on the first line. For example, B comes before D, QA before QE.

• The second line is still part of the subject area and is arranged numerically by whole number. For example:

CB	comes before	CB		HM	comes before	HM
53		428		953		1257

• The third line consists of a letter and a decimal number. R49, for example, would come before R5 (because .49 is smaller than .5). The fourth line, if there is one, is read the same. Example:

Read the third line as R (decimal point) 78 and the fourth line as P (decimal point) 34 even though there are no actual decimal points present.

• Below the LC classification number is the year of publication. Sometimes there is also a volume or copy number. For example:

Step 4: Can't Find What You're Looking For?

Do you know the book you're looking for, but you can't find it in URSUS? Check out our section on Interlibrary Loan to find out how you can still get what you want through Mantor.