1. Library familiarization
Ref: Pinner D, 1998, Communication Skills, Addison Wesley Longman New Zealand Limited,
ch4 pp.40-48, ch3 pp28-34

2. Library familiarization
What is a Library?
Collection and storage place for information, sources, resources and services ranging from books to periodicals to artifacts and more.

3. Be familiar with the library!
Know where to go when you need to do more research.
Know what to do when you need to do more readings for your assignments/tests/tasks/etc.
Know how to locate the materials you need.

4. Finding Information in the Library:
Decide - what information you need.
Think - what kind of info you need? Statistics? Research data? Theories? Facts to support arguments? Diagrams?
Where you will find this info. (books, journals, etc?) Will you need to use the catalogue or indexes?
Go to the Library and track down the info you need.

5. How the library is organized
Most libraries have the following:
Newspapers
Magazines
Textbooks
Journals
Audio and video materials
Encyclopedias
Reference books
Fiction and non fiction books
Photographs
Maps

6. Dewey Decimal System
The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC)is a system of library classification.
It classifies non-fiction books by dividing them into 10 subject groups represented by figures/numbers beginning with 000 and going on to 999.
 Melvil Dewey, an American Librarian - developed DDC in 1876.

7. Non fiction Classified according to the DDC.
The 10 main classes in the DDC are:
000 General works, general knowledge, encyclopedias.
100 Philosophy and psychology
200 Religion
300 Social Sc, politics, law, trade, society
400 Languages
500 Natural science and mathematics

8. Non fiction cont’d
600 Applied Sc and technology 700 Fine arts and recreation 800 Literature and rhetoric 900 History, Geography, Biography, and auxiliary disciplines These 10 divisions are again further divided into 10 sections. Each section is again further divided into 10 sections. The classification progresses from general to specific subjects.

9. Fiction
Classified by using the letter ‘F’ and the first 3 letters of the author’s surname, eg. The Firm by John Grisham would be classified FGRI.
To make it easy to find the book, the call number is printed on the spine.
Books are placed in alphabetical order according to the author’s surname.
If there’s no clear author, the book is classified according to its title.

10. Reference section
The books in this section are for use in the library only.
Books in this section include: encyclopedias, statistics, dictionaries, directories, atlases, handbooks, yearbooks, bibliographies.

11. Periodical Section
Periodicals are generally materials published at regular intervals such as newspapers, magazines and journals.