Music: Making Sense of Call Numbers

The Music Library’s collection consists of materials in a variety of formats:

• Music: scores, recordings (LP, CD, cassette, VCR, DVD)
• Books and materials about music: history, biography, reference
• Books and materials of instruction & study: primers, methods, theory, etc.
• Music magazines and journals (periodicals)

 Every item has two identifying labels attached:

•  A barcode: a unique number attaches the item to a record in a database
• A call number label: gives a unique identifier to each item, which acts as a shelf address made up of letters and numbers (alpha-numeric).  It also serves to collocate (group together) items of a similar type, family, or genre.

 A typical call number looks something like this:

This example illustrates the alpha-numeric filing system (putting items in a certain order). The various parts identify the type of material (line 1), the genre (line 2), the subject or title (line 3), the author or composer (line 4), and the date of publication (line 5). Depending on the item, its call number can be more or less complicated than the example above, but the same basic principles apply for shelving by alphabetical and numerical order.

Line 1

Formats identified by the initial element(s) (line 1) of the call number 

Formats	Music	Music Literature	Music Instruction
Paper (scores & books)	M	ML	MT
LP	MD	MLD	MTD
CD	MCD	MLCD	MTCD
Video	MV	MLV	MTV
Cassette	MC	MLC	MTC
DVD	MDV	MLDV	MTDV
CD-ROM	MCR	MLCR	MTCR

Line 2 

Outline of numbers (line 2) used to designate the genre (family, type) of items for the M classification

The first column indicates the major divisions of music (described in the fourth column), the second column indicates important ranges within the main category, and the third column identifies certain specific areas of interest. This table is a simplified presentation to give you an idea of how the system works. There are similar tables for music literature (ML) and music instruction and study (MT) books.

Line 3

The next element of the call number (line 3) begins with a period followed by a letter. This is the section where we encode names of persons or topics. In the example, .M9 is the code for Mozart, in the sense that he is the subject of the book (a biography). 

Line 4

Similarly, S65 (line 4) is code for the author, Mr. Solomon. This encoding system is a shorthand that saves a lot of space in a small area (i.e. the label), e.g. the name of the composer Rimsky-Korsakov can be reduced to .R56, for example. The letter is always the initial letter of a name, title, or subject and the following numbers represent the rest of the word. The reason why this section (lines 3 & 4) begins with a period, is to indicate that all numbers are to be treated as decimals, thus .M334 (Mahler) comes before .M53 (Mendelssohn). This ensures, for example, that symphonies by Mahler are shelved before those by Mozart. The use of decimals also allows the collection to expand naturally -- new materials can always be slotted in among existing ones!

Line 5

The final element (line 5), the date of publication, is sometimes omitted.

Each item in the Music Library has a unique Call Number, which has 2 functions:

• An address or location code that tells you where the item lives in the library
• The parts tell you something about the item itself, since similar items are shelved together, e.g., horn scores by Mozart, CDs of Puccini operas, books on electroacoustic music

 

In the Library of Congress Classification System, “M” designates music as subject. But when we have a whole library full of “M” items, we need to make it more specific! Print materials will have one of 3 broad subjects: M=sheet music/scores, ML= literature about music, MT=music instruction & study

Line 2 is for the general topic and is always a whole number. 410 means it’s a biography.

Line 3 gets more specific and tells us the book is about Benjamin Britten, since .B853 is his code. In this line, the number is a decimal, so .B853 (Britten) would come before .B88 (Bruckner).

Line 4 is based on the author of the book, Neil Powell, and is also treated as a decimal number.

Line 5 is the year of publication. Sometimes this is in the 4^th line, while other times it’s just left out.

With each line of the call number, you get closer to the book itself. There are 210 shelves of music literature (ML),  64 shelves of biographies (410),  20 of them about Benjamin Britten, and only 1 written by Neil Powell. If he’d written more than one, then the year of publication would narrow it to the correct one.

Call numbers for recordings work very much the same way.

MCD   tells you the format:  MCD means a CD, MDV means a DVD, MD means an LP, etc.
1704   tells you this is vocal music
.P75    is for Vilém Přibyl (the singer)
E94     is for Evening Songs, the title of the CD
2019   tells you when it was produced.

 

 

To find library items in the catalog, please return to the Searching WestCat main tab.

To browse the collection, there are a few guides to Library of Congress Classification that you can use to make sure that you start off in the right direction:

The Library of Congress Classification Outline provides a general overview of the M, ML, and MT classes.

UNLV's Guide to LC Classification focuses primarily on the M class, making it a great choice for students wanting to explore repertoire by browsing the collection.

• M = sheet music/scores

• ML = literature about music

• MT = music instruction & study

• MCD = CD

• MDV = DVD

• MD = LP

Library of Congress Classification Outline

UMich Libguide on LoC Call Numbers

University System of Georgia