Catalogs
- OBIS: Catalog of the Oberlin College Library This link opens in a new windowSearch for books, journals, databases, etc. at Oberlin College.
- OhioLINK Library Catalog This link opens in a new windowOhioLINK Library Catalog is a combined catalog of over 7.8 million books and other library materials from many of Ohio's universities, colleges, community colleges and the State Library of Ohio. OhioLINK's design allows you to transfer a search from your local library catalog to the OhioLINK combined catalog with the touch of a button. The OhioLINK catalog provides immediate access to the library holdings of the whole system, including current availability status. Requested books and other materials are delivered to your library within a few days. Catalog entries for electronic books and journals link directly to those resources.
- WorldCat.org This link opens in a new windowThe OCLC union catalog, containing more than 43 million records describing books and other items owned by libraries around the world. Each record contains library holdings. WorldCat covers thousands of subjects and includes records for items as far back as 1000 B.C. Materials covered in the catalog include: books, internet resources, computer data files, computer programs, films, journals, magazines, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, newspapers, slides, sound recordings, and videotapes. WorldCat does not include individual article titles or stories in journals, magazines, newspapers, or book chapters.
Reading Call Numbers
There are two major call number systems used in the libraries: the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classification schemes. The first line of a call number, as it appears on a physical item, is a broad subject classification. The subsequent lines are combinations of letters and numbers that organize items into narrower, related categories.
| Library of Congress | Dewey Decimal |
| HB Alphabetically 615 Whole number |
573.3 Whole number, followed by decimal |
| C518 Alphabetically, then decimals (may be followed by another letter) |
.W932A Alphabetically, then decimals |
| 2018 Publication Date, shelves chronologically | e.g., 573.3 W932A shelves before 573.3 W94A |
See How to Read Call Numbers from the University of Berkeley Library for more details about LC call numbers.
Search Tools
- Google BooksSearch the full-text of millions of books digitized by google. Some full-text available for reading.
- Summon This link opens in a new windowSearches more than 300 million items - books, scholarly articles, newspaper articles, data, digital audio, digital video, digital images, government documents and more. It draws from the library catalog (OBIS), many of the full text and article indexing databases, as well as digital repositories from colleges, universities, research centers, and other open-access archives on the web. Includes full-text searching of some books that Oberlin College only owns in print.
InterLibrary Loan
Can't find what you need? For books, try OhioLINK. For books not available through OhioLINK and for other types of materials, use Interlibrary Loan (ILL). ILL lets you borrow materials from non-OhioLINK libraries, including print books, scanned journal articles, musical scores, videos, theses/dissertations, and more.