Washington Semester Program

Get Books Shipped from Dinand

When no electronic options are available, you may request for books owned by the Libraries to be mailed to you via Document Delivery. We will send books via Priority Mail with tracking, and you are not required to mail books back.

We will not mail Interlibrary Loan books or other items -- we will only mail items that belong to the Holy Cross Libraries (including the Worcester Art Museum Library). 

Make sure that your address in ILLiad is set to your current, DC mailing address! 
 

 Instructions for Document Delivery & Interlibrary Loan

Library of Congress Catalog 

The Library of Congress is a great resource to take advantage of while you are studying in Washington. While you cannot take books out of the library, once you are registered (see the Resources in Washington page for more information), you can use LoC's collections within the library. LoC is the largest library in the world, so its collections will include many books that you might have difficulty finding elsewhere. 

While Library of Congress books are included in the WorldCat database (see the next tab), due to the size and complexity of its collections, it's not a bad idea to use the library's own catalog to search. 

Note that there are multiple versions of the Library of Congress catalog. The one based on keyword searching, which is most similar to how our own catalogs work, is linked below. 

You can find details, recommendations and links to the Keyword search and other available catalog searches on the Library of Congress website: 

Note that there are not many options for limiting your results once you've run a search, so you may want to use the Add Limits button at the point when you begin searching to narrow down by factors such as language, publication date, etc. 

WorldCat (Other Books) 

The WorldCat database brings together and searches library catalog records from around the world. You can use WorldCat to look for books that are available at other Washington, DC libraries, including public libraries and the Library of Congress.

To begin, do a keyword search as you would in any other library  catalog: 

Then, click to view the full list of libraries where the item is available, including local public libraries. Make sure your zip code is set to Washington/Arlington and not to your home address! 

Note: It is always a good idea to check the local library's catalog as well as their access policies, before making a trip to check out a specific item. WorldCat will tell you if a library owns the book you are looking for, but it will not tell you if that book is already checked out.

Browsing the Stacks:

Browsing library stacks can be a valuable technique to expand research on your topic, no matter where you are. This is perhaps even more true when using libraries whose catalogs you are unfamiliar with. 

Most academic libraries, including Dinand, use a system called Library of Congress Classification (LCC) to organize books. Each book or journal is identified by a unique call number. Unlike call numbers in the Dewey Decimal System, LCC call numbers include a combination of both letters and numbers. These call numbers identify the location of the book in the stacks; they also identify the subject (or the main subject if there are more than one) of the book or journal. 

*Note: As you might guess, Library of Congress also uses LCC for some purposes, but its stacks are not open for browsing. 

Because call numbers are subject-based, it is possible to physically view most of the books on a given topic in one area of the library. This means that it is possible to visit the stacks and browse the selection of materials on your topic, and that the number section for your topic should be the same, even in different libraries. 

To begin, you can....

(a) Locate a book on your topic in the library catalog, and note the call number; OR
(b) Identify the LCC call number range that corresponds to your topic, by viewing the Library of Congress Classification Outline. 

This will tell you the area of the library where you should begin browsing. If your topic is complex or multidisciplinary, there may be more than one area that you should visit. 

You can also watch our Call Numbers video tutorial  to learn more about how call numbers work. While the way that specific libraries apply call numbers may vary slightly, the basic principles will be the same. 

Why browse the stacks? 

It's true -- it might require less effort to virtually 'visit' the library stacks via the website. And, the catalog is a great way to find both e- and print materials on your topic. However, because the catalog relies on keyword searching, sometimes truly relevant titles slip through the cracks -- maybe your keyword wasn't in the description of the book recorded in the catalog (these descriptions are not always comprehensive), or appeared in a slightly different form. 

When you visit a library's stacks, you can view all of the books on the shelf (so long as they are in the right spot!) and see what you might be missing. Often, browsing the shelf will turn up an even better resource than the one you were originally searching for. It's also possible that, in going through a long list of search results, you overlooked a title that is a little more eye-catching on the shelf!