Excuse me. Can you tell me how to find some books on social science?
Sure. You see all these little drawers here and all the way around the walls?
Yes.
These drawers contain cards describing every book in our library. Together they constitute the library's ' card catalog '. You can see that each drawer runs from one part of the alphabet to another. Fox example, this drawer goes from SCA to SCM.
So if I'm looking for a look called A History of Western Society, I'd just look under'A'.
No. You'd look under'W'. The articles'a'and'the'don't count in our alphabetization, and cards are generally omitted for extremely common words and phrases such as'history of', 'introduction to', 'story of'and so forth.
What if I don't know the title of the book?
Well, you can look under the author's name.
Could you give me an example?
Suppose you want to find a book by your professor, William Smith. You'd look under SMITH and then WILLIAM. Since that's very common name, you may have to go through several'William Smith'until you come to the one who wrote book on the subject you are interested in.