Library of Congress Cataloguing

How to use the Library of Congress Catalogue System

• The first line is always a Letter Line and is filed alphabetically.

  • BH

• The second line is a Whole Number line and is filed numerically.

BH    BH

23      234

• Sometimes the second line has a decimal and continues on the same line or on the third line. Anytime you see a decimal point, always take each space separately (do not consider it a whole number).

  • Always read each digit separately remember if there is a decimal point to take one space at a time.

     E

    302       Three hundred two

    .H277   “H, two, seven, seven.”        

• Other lines may include volume numbers, copy numbers, dates or a combination.

• Letters before numbers.
• Nothing before something.
• No date before a date.
• Volumes before copies.
• Copies before dates.

• As you can see, these books are in the correct order.

  The first 3 lines on all of these books are the same, so they belong together in the same place.

  The next row is what will determine their order. Alphabetical then numerical will decide what order they go in.

• 

These books, however, are not in order.

The first two lines are the same on each book, but the decimals are out of order.

The first book should be moved to the end with the book that has the same catalogue number.