The best way to find things in the library is to use the library catalogue. You can restrict your search (for example, to journals or titles only) by using the drop-down box on the right hand side of the search box.
Once you’ve found the item you’re looking for, click on the ‘Details’ button to the left, to open the full record. This will contain information about which library the book or journal is held in and where in that library it is. For books, it will also show the number of copies available; for journals, the years and volumes that we have.
Books
Imperial College Library uses a system called Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) to classify its books. This is similar to the Dewey Decimal System often used in public & school libraries, but with some differences.
For example, in Chemistry, 54 is the number for general chemistry books, while 541 is for physical chemistry. However, they will be close together on the shelf, as the numbers are all arranged as if they were decimals – it may help to think of them as 0.54, 0.541 and so on.
There are also different punctuation marks used – the most common one is . followed by : ( ) and – . These all have different meanings, and are used to describe the subject of the book as accurately as possible. You don’t need to know the meaning of a symbol to find the book, but you do need to know the order that they are shelved in:
/ e.g. 541/541.3
e.g. 541
: e.g. 541:681.3
( ) e.g. 541(3)
.00 e.g. 541.003
- e.g. 541-52
. e.g. 541.1
The letters at the end usually refer to the author or editor’s family name, or the title of the book.
Journals
The catalogue will tell you which library the journal is held in. It will also tell you which years we have available in print. To find out which years are available online, click the ‘SFX’ button to the right of the record – this will open a pop up with details of where you can access which issues of the journal. If we don’t have access to the year you need, you may be able to get the article on inter-library loan.
