Find Books in the Catalog and on the Shelf

how to find, connect, use

Searching the BC Libraries' Collections

(Materials not found in the Boston College Libraries' collections may be requested through Interlibrary Loan.)

  • Using Quest, the online catalog, you can find the BC Libraries' books, journals (physical and electronic), archives and manuscripts, graphics, newspapers, kits, maps, microforms, musical scores, realia, sound recordings, and visual recordings.

    - The default screen for Quest provides Basic Search options to search the catalog by Author, Subject, Title, or Keyword.
    - In Advanced Search, you can limit your search to specific formats, languages and dates.

  • BC Faculty Publications Catalog - A citation database of scholarly publications produced by Boston College faculty. Updated annually, the database represents approximately 12,000 scholarly publications produced by full-time faculty members.

Locating Books on the Shelf in the Library

The Library of Congress Classification System is an alphanumeric system used to organize books by subject, author and title information. In short, the system allows information concerning related subjects to be organized together for easy reference. Get help locating government documents.


 

Library of Congress Basic Subject Classifications
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L		 General Works
Philosophy, Psychology, Religion
Sciences of History, History of Civilization
History (World excluding U.S)
History (American)
History (American)
Geography, Anthropology, Recreation
Social Sciences
Not used
Political Science
Law
Education		 M
N
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Z		 Music
Fine and Visual Arts
Language, Literature, Philology, Linguistics
Science
Medicine
Agriculture
Technology
Military Science
Naval Science
Not Used
Not Used
Bibliography and Library Science

» View a floor plan of the O'Neill Library [PDF] » View a floor plan of the Law Library

 

Other Ways to Find Books

  • Database CrossSearch - Search many Boston Library Consortium catalogs, RLIN, WorldCat, and other catalogs from around the world. Choose the category, "Library Catalogs" and search up to eight library catalogs simultaneously.
  • WorldCat - (BC Community Only) This online union catalog of OCLC has over 45 million bibliographic records, comprising books, journals, audiovisual materials, etc. Includes manuscripts written as early as the 11th century. Each record has a list of holding libraries.
  • Global Books In Print (BC Community Only). This database contains books in and out of print. Search by author, title, subject and ISBN. Global Books In Print contains over 4 million titles that are available in the U.S. and Canada, as well as Whitaker's British Books In Print® database of over 1 million titles available in the U.K.
  • Find items not owned by Boston College.