Finding Books
You can access many books, ebooks, journal articles, and other sources at Oberlin. The resources below will help you to find everything we have at Oberlin and can access via other libraries in Ohio and worldwide.
Search at Oberlin and in OhioLINK
Search everything available from Oberlin and from OhioLINK institutions across Ohio. Includes books and ebooks, journal articles, music scores, videos, audio, newspaper articles, and more.
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Search.Libraries This link opens in a new window
Find books, journal articles, scores, audio, video, and more from a single integrated starting point.
Search Libraries Worldwide
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WorldCat: FirstSearch This link opens in a new windowThe WorldCat catalog contains over 560 million records describing books and other items owned by libraries worldwide. Each record contains library holdings. The catalog includes books, films, scholarly journals, maps, microfilm, newspapers, sound recordings, and more. WorldCat does not include individual journal articles, stories in magazines and newspapers, or book chapters.
Tip: If you want to request something you only see in WorldCat, see our interlibrary loan guide for next steps.
Reading Call Numbers
Two major call number systems are used in the libraries: the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classification schemes. As it appears on a physical item, the first line of a call number is a broad subject classification. The subsequent lines combine letters and numbers to 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.