OBIS
Find books, e-books, videos, scores, and recordings at Oberlin by title, author, subject, keyword, or other options.
OhioLINK
Can't find a book at Oberlin? Find and request materials held at 120 OhioLINK libraries. Requested items are delivered to the circulation desk on the first floor of Mudd Center, typically within 3-5 business days. The OhioLINK catalog describes over 46 million items, including books, periodicals, maps, music scores and audiovisual materials.
Call Number Browsing
The mathematical collection (in print) is primarily shelved in the Terrell Main Library, with call numbers beginning QA. Older books (cataloged prior to 1975) were classed in the Dewey Decimal system, call numbers beginning 510 through 519. Most of these have been moved to storage, and can be requested from the OBIS record for the item. Details of the LC system for QA:
- QA 1-99 General mathematics
- QA 101-145 Arithmetic
- QA 150-272 Algebra
- QA 273-280 Probabilities. Mathematical statistics
- QA 299-433 Analysis
- QA 440-699 Geometry. Trigonometry. Topology
- QA 801-939 Analytic mechanics
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.
New Books Recently Added to the Collection
Conversational Problem Solving by ISBN: 9781470456351Publication Date: 2020-08-06This book features mathematical problems and results that would be of interest to all mathematicians, but especially undergraduates (and even high school students) who participate in mathematical competitions such as the International Math Olympiads and Putnam Competition.
Differential Forms by ISBN: 9789813272774Publication Date: 2019-04-27There already exist a number of excellent graduate textbooks on the theory of differential forms as well as a handful of very good undergraduate textbooks on multivariable calculus in which this subject is briefly touched upon but not elaborated on enough.The goal of this textbook is to be readable and usable for undergraduates.
Hilbert Spaces: Properties and Applications by ISBN: 9781536166439Publication Date: 2019-12-20Various mathematical properties of the Hilbert space and extended Hilbert space are given, accompanied by reliable solutions and exciting applications to scientific and engineering problems.
Making Up Numbers: A History of Invention in Mathematics (ebook) by ISBN: 9781800640955Publication Date: 2020How has our concept of numbers developed over the centuries, and how were various puzzles and conceptual problems encountered along the way were resolved? Those who teach the subject, at any level, might find historical perspectives helpful when seeking to overcome the all too prevalent perception of the subject as ‘to difficult’, or even as ‘dry’ and devoid of human drama, humour or fallibility
Reckonings : numerals, cognition, and history (ebook) by ISBN: 9780262044639Publication Date: 2020-12-15Stephen Chrisomalis considers how humans past and present use numerals, reinterpreting historical and archaeological representations of numerical notation and exploring the implications of why we write numbers with figures rather than words.
eBooks and Digital Collections
eBooks in our library catalog, OBIS, are easily searched from the E-Books tab at the top of the OBIS search screen.
See also the E-Books source list on the Libraries' website.
Safari Books Online includes hundreds of books on mathematical topics.
Specialized sources are listed below:
- Historical Math MonographsCornell University Library. "A digital collection of historical math monographs"
- World Digital Mathematics LibraryAn coordinated initiative still in process, to digitize the past mathematical literature in order to make it available online. From the International Mathematical Union.
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.
Contact ill@oberlin.edu with questions.