You will need your student or staff card to borrow from our libraries.
Visit the Borrowing Information page for details about our borrowing conditions.
The University of Melbourne Library organises its collections by using Dewey Decimal Classification (with the exception of the Law and the East Asian collections). You don't need to remember what the numbers mean, but it can help to be familiar with the top level categories for your area of study.
Each item has a call number which is like the book's address on our shelves. This number is made up from numbers which indicate the general category the book belongs to, numbers which indicate the specific topic, and letters that give further details about the author or title.
EXAMPLE
To get to the subclass for the book The Planets by Carmel Reilly the Dewey number grows like this:
500 Natural Sciences and Maths
523 Specific celestial bodies
523.4 Planets
523.4 REIL The Planets by Carmel Reilly
The catalogue record tells you which floor of which library houses the book and which level the book is located on. Every one of our book shelves has a number range listed on it to help you find books more quickly.
If you ever need help finding a book on the shelves, please ask a library staff member at our service desks or one of our Student Library Assistants.