Call Numbers Decoded

The call number shows the location of a book or microform in the library. It appears in parentheses on the online catalog screen.

The Legal Research Center arranges material in Library of Congress (LC) call number order. LC divides knowledge into 21 main topics or classes  that corresponding to academic areas of study. An LC call number has letters and numbers indicating the class and the individual item in the class.

LC call numbers begin with a letter and have between three and five distinct parts. In the online catalog the call numbers appear on one line (KJW 3181.52 .T33 1988), but on book spine labels each part usually appears on a separate line:

KJW (class or subclass)
3181.52 (class number)
.T33 (Cutter number)
1988 (year of publication)

The LC system denotes main classes or over-arching subject by single capital letters. Double or triple capital letters represent subclasses.
K (Law (the over-arching broad subject))
KF (Law of the United States (a subdivision or the broad subject))
KFC (Law of states of the United States beginning with "C" (a further subdivision of the subject law of the United States))

The first letter/number combination in the call number describes the subject class of the book, usually the first two lines on a book spine label, as in the following call number assigned by the Library of Congress to the 1988 book, Transfers of Property in Eleventh-Century Norman Law, by Emily Zack Tabuteau:

KJW (triple letters for the subclass: Law of French regions, provinces and departments)
3181.52 (number for regions, provinces and departments assigned to Normandy)

The book number follows the subject class number in a recognizable pattern: a decimal point (.) followed by a single capital letter plus numbers that are read in decimal sequence and filed accordingly, i.e., .C52, .C6, .C74, .C8, etc. The book number may also contain further elements, such as a work letter, a date, and/or volume number to distinguish among different works or editions of the same work or different issues in a series. In the call number assigned to Transfers of Property in Eleventh-Century Norman Law, the third line is the book number and the fourth line is the date of publication, as follows:

.T33 (book number for a general work based on the author: Tabuteau)
1988 (year of publication)

Examples:

B.E. Witkin & Norman L. Epstein, California Criminal Law (3rd ed. 2000).

KFC (triple letters for the subclass: Law of states of the United States with names beginning with "C")
1100 (number meaning general works of criminal law in California)
.W57 (book number based on the name of the first author: Witkin)
2000 (year of publication)

John S. Goldkamp & Michael R. Gottfredson, Policy Guidelines for Bail: An Experiment in Court Reform (1985).

KFX (triple letters for the subclass: Law of cities of the United States)
2137.4 (number meaning special topics relating to local offenses in Philadelphia)
.B3 (first book number for the special topic: bail)
G65 (second book number for the name of the author: Goldkamp)
1985 (year of publication)

The following call numbers are arranged in the correct order: