Ram Answers

• The Whittemore Library uses the Library of Congress (LC) system (often used in academic libraries) for its main and its reference book collections.  More details of the system can be found here.
• FSU's specialized Ella C. Ritchie Curriculum Collection (located on the Upper Mezzanine of the Whittemore Library) uses the Lois Watts system (rather specialized; originally devised to organize textbooks) to file its materials. More details of her system can be found here.

How does a call number help me find a book?

• Whether you are seeking a book from our Main or Reference Collections, or one from the Curriculum Collection, each item will have a label on it with its call number (generally, a combinations of letters and/or numbers).
• When you find the name of a print book / resource while using our online catalog, the item's record will tell you its unique call number. You can then retrieve the item from the book stacks by scanning the row of books in order to locate that specific call number label (usually easily visible on the book's spine, but sometimes located instead on the front of the resource).

Remember: When you are in the book stacks, following the order of the call numbers, they usually wrap around to the other side of the shelving, then cross onto the next shelving unit. Occasionally, though, the call number order may 'jump across' larger aisles to another shelving unit. There are signs on the ends of the shelving that let you know the call number at the start and at the very end of that side of that particular shelving unit.