Catalog search tips:
CLIO is the library catalog for the Columbia Library System (including Barnard Library, but excluding Teachers College and some information from the Law Library). In CLIO you can find books and media materials, search for different kinds of databases, and find articles within those databases as well.
If you are looking for a book that is not listed in CLIO, or if all copies of that book listed in CLIO are checked out, request the book though Borrow Direct. Books requested through Borrow Direct usually arrive within four working days.
If an item is not listed or is not available through Borrow Direct, you can often borrow it through Interlibrary Loan (ILL), For a helpful table identifying differences between Borrow Direct and ILL, see this comparison chart from Columbia Libraries. More information about other ways to access texts and other items is available in Affordable Textbooks page of this guide.
WorldCat contains catalog records for over 2 billion items held by libraries around the world. It includes records for books, manuscripts, websites and internet resources, etc. Searching WorldCat is an excellent way of moving beyond the range of what Columbia has collected to the larger universe of what is actually out there. You can borrow many types of items listed in WorldCat through either Borrow Direct or Interlibrary Loan. You can click on the e-Link icon in the WorldCat record for an item to search for it in CLIO or Borrow Direct, or to connect to an Interlibrary Loan request form that will already be filled out with basic data for that item.
To browse the stacks for books grouped together by subject, you may refer to the Library of Congress Classification System Outline.
Keep in mind that this outline only reflects one of many possible ways that books might be understood in relation to each other, and that the taxonomic and classificatory hierarchies and categories of this system do not have the last word on how we might place texts in conversation and context!
Nonetheless, it could be useful to take this outline as a pathway to finding some sources while you are looking through the library collections, as books at Barnard, Butler, and other CUL Libraries tend to be shelved and organized according to their call numbers.
Some call number ranges that may be of interest below.
DS901-937 History of the World. Korea.
E75-E99 Indians of North America
E184-185.98 United States. Elements in the Population.
E740-837.7 United States. Twentieth Century.
E838-889 United States. Later twentieth century, 1961-2000.
F1931-1941 Dominican Republic
HQ1101-2030.7 Women. Feminism.
HV6001-7220.5 Criminology
HX1-970.7 Socialism. Communism. Anarchism.
PS221-228 American Literature. 20th Century.