Find books and e-books using the Books, Articles & More search box on the library homepage.

Tips:

• Use quotation marks to search for an exact phrase, as in "Ancient Greece" or "Roman Britain".
• On the search results page, use the options on the left to narrow down your search.
• Scroll down to the bottom of a book's library record to see the Virtual Shelf Browse, which shows which other books that are shelved near the one you've found.
• Sign into the system to place a hold on a book, or to request electronic scans of chapters.

Try using Interlibrary Loan. It's free!

If Simpson Library doesn't have the item that you're looking for, you can have it sent from another library. Articles and book chapters are delivered electronically. Books are sent through the mail for pickup at Simpson Library.

Books are shelved according to Library of Congress Classification. In this system, the library is divided into twenty-one broad subject areas, each of which is assigned one letter of the alphabet.

Books about history are assigned to the letters C, D, E, and F. Within these areas are the following two-letter and three-letter codes:

C -- Auxiliary Sciences of History (General)

• CB -- History of Civilization
• CC -- Archaeology
• CD -- Diplomatics. Archives. Seals
• CE -- Technical Chronology. Calendar
• CJ -- Numismatics
• CN -- Inscriptions. Epigraphy
• CR -- Heraldry
• CS -- Genealogy
• CT -- Biography

D -- World History and History of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, etc. 

• D -- History (General)
• DA -- Great Britain
• DAW -- Central Europe
• DB -- Austria - Liechtenstein - Hungary - Czechoslovakia
• DC -- France - Andorra - Monaco
• DD -- Germany
• DE -- Greco-Roman World
• DF -- Greece
• DG -- Italy - Malta
• DH -- Low Countries - Benelux Countries (Continued on next page)
• DJ -- Netherlands (Holland)
• DJK -- Eastern Europe (General)
• DK -- Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics - Poland
• DL -- Northern Europe. Scandinavia
• DP -- Spain - Portugal
• DQ -- Switzerland
• DR -- Balkan Peninsula
• DS -- Asia
• DT -- Africa
• DU -- Oceania (South Seas)
• DX -- Romanies

E-F -- History of the Americas

• E 11-143 -- America
• E 151-909 -- United States
• F 1-975 -- United States local history
• F 1001-1145.2 -- British America (including Canada)
• F 1170 -- French America
• F 1201-3799 -- Latin America. Spanish America

For more detailed information on how books are arranged within these areas, see these PDF guides:

History students often need to find biographies (books about individual people). See below for Simpson Library's guide to finding biographies.

Check out these new books in our History & American Studies collections.