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Finding Journal Articles   |   Locating the Item in the Library   |   RefWorks

Locating The Item In The Library

Now you've identified several journal articles you'd like to read. You know they're both in the library, but where? And how do you tell?

The Yale Library uses several different classification systems. Many of you are probably familiar with the Dewey Decimal System from your high school or public library. Until 1968 Yale used a system of its own devising. At the end of the 1960's we switched to the Library of Congress system, but we couldn't go back and reclass all the books already classified using the old Yale system, so there are many books in Sterling still classed in old Yale. We also shelve books by size (regular, oversize, and folio -- really big). This means that on any given subject books COULD be in six different places (two classification schemes times three sizes). In practice, things are rarely that complicated. But you do need to be careful when writing down a call number to include every part of it, and you do need a guide to help you determine where to look for a book. Our answer is the stack directory, available in paper copies, posted on every stack floor in SML, and online.

Where do you need to go for the Harper's article?

Where do you need to go for the Texas Studies in Literature and Language article?