Finding What You Need in the Library
Libraries are simply large collections of information sources. The information that libraries contain is usually in the form of books but you will also find newspapers, magazines, journals, video tapes, audio tapes, CD-ROM discs, DVD discs, maps and maybe even collections of leaflets.
Of course a collection of information is useless unless it is organised in some way and libraries organise their collections of information using a scheme called the Dewey Decimal Classification system. The DDC or Dewey (as it is often known) is the system used by most public and academic libraries in the U.K. Once you understand how the system works you can find your way round any library from a small public branch library to the largest University libraries at Cambridge or Oxford!
You do not need to know a lot about the DDC just the fact that it lists many different subjects and gives each of them a number which is then stuck on to the book or CD case or whatever. These numbers are known as subject numbers, class or classification numbers, or class marks. The books and other resources are then arranged on the library shelves in numerical order.
The Ten Main Subject Groups
The DDC contains many thousands of numbers arranged into ten major subject groups; if you know only the numbers of these ten groups you will have a good chance of finding your way round the library, eliminating 90 per cent of the stock and locating just that 10 per cent that interest you.
The ten main subjects and numbers of the DDC are:
| 000 | Generalities | 100 | Philosophy and Psychology |
| 200 | Religion | 300 | Social Sciences |
| 400 | Language | 500 | Natural Sciences & Mathematics |
| 600 | Technology (Applied Sciences) | 700 | The Arts |
| 800 | Literature & Rhetoric | 900 | Geography & History |
Each of these ten subjects are subdivided into ten more subjects or classes giving 100 major subdivisions; in their turn each of these subdivisions are further divided and the process is continued to produce many thousands of subject numbers. If you know the numbers of the two or three major subdivisions that relate to your course or interest you have an extremely powerful tool for finding your way round even the largest of libraries. You can look at these 100 subdivisions on the Learning Centre’s website if you wish:
www.citycol.com/lrc/resources/lib_cat/lib_cat_dewey.htm
Resources for Deaf Studies
Books and other resources for Deaf Studies are organised using this system and they are filed in the Library in their correct location according to the scheme. Therefore, books about British Sign Language are filed with languages, books about social services for Deaf people are filed with books about social services, books about the medical aspects of deafness are filed with medicine and so on.
The main subject numbers for Deaf Studies are listed here to save you time looking for them. Remember, once you know these numbers you can find similar resources in any other library in the country!
| Subject | Subject number |
| Deaf Studies, Deaf History | 362.41 to 362.42 |
| Education of the deaf and hearing impaired | 371.912 |
| Sign language interpreters | 418.02 |
| Sign language | 419 |
| Hearing loss, Audiology, medical aspects of deafness | 617.8 |
All of the resources for Deaf Studies are filed at these numbers, whether they are books, video tapes, DVDs or CD ROMS.
One final point to make is to remind you that you can use the Learning Centre catalogue on the internet. This is a list of all of the resources in the Learning Centre; simply type in what you are looking for. The catalogue will then give you the subject number and say whether the book is available or not. You can view the catalogue at: