Doing Research at the Library of Congress
III. Searching the Catalog with Classification Numbers
The Basic Search screen of the Library's catalog has several search options
listed under "Search Type" (see Figure
3, Subject Browse in the Library of
Congress Online Catalog). Each of these search
options will provide you with a browse menu starting from the term
you enter. Thus,
an Author "browse" under the single surname Hemingway will show you
the Library's holdings not only under "Hemingway, Ernest," but also
under
"Hemingway, Anne," "Hemingway, Carol," "Hemingway, John," and
so on. A Title "browse" under Left field will turn up the
entries Left
field,
Left
field baseball book, Left field bear, and Left field eruption.
Particularly useful for subject inquiries are browse searches
by call numbers. These will enable you to identify works shelved
near your startingpoint
classification number. Of course, searching brief catalog records in
an online catalog is not the same thing as searching the actual full texts of
the books themselves, arranged in subject groups in the bookstacks; but
since the Library of Congress has closed stacks, for security reasons, the
computer search capability at least indicates the presence of nearby titles,
even if it does not reveal their full contents online. Searching by class numbers
derived from relevant books already identified can often turn up subject-related
books that are not brought to your attention by Library of Congress
subject
headings.
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