If you know the author and the title of a book, you can look for it in the alphabetical catalogue.

The alphabetical books catalogue contains descriptions of all documents published after 1800 and obtained by the library before 1st of November 1995, except notes, maps, atlases, social life documantations, which you can find in catalogues of relevant Library department.

Each catalogue card is a description of one book, which the Library has in one or more copies. Catalogue cards are arranged alphabetically by entries. The alphabet, the Library uses, is the Latin alphabet completed with letters: l, ł, ę. ą, Ÿ, ż. It means that you have to look for the name "Żeromski" like for "Zeromski", and if you want to find "Łączyński", you have to look for "Laczyński".

An author’s name is given in its original form e.g. when looking for works by Szekspir, you will find a card referring to Shakespeare, e.g.:

Szekspir William
zob. SHAKESPEARE William

If you are looking for Czechow, you have to look for CEHOV.

A catalogue card with description of a book gives you important information about this publication. These are: entry, call number, place and year of publication, publisher, number of pages, illustrations.

The entry is a word, under which the alphabetical catalogue is arranged. In case of books catalogue it can be the author or title. For works written by one, two or three authors, the entry is a name of the first author. When looking for names of other authors you will find cross references to the relevant entry. When there is no author of a work or a work is written by more then three authors, the entry is the first word of the title, which is not an article like the, der, ein etc. The entry can be a conjunction e.g. "Z dalekich galaktyk".

The call number indicates, where a given item is stored. The University Library uses Arabic numerals. The call number is written in the upper right corner of a catalogue card. It may be also accompanied by a stamp.

The stamp on the catalogue card informs about the place, where a publication is stored and available e.g. Czyt. Hum.-Społ. (the Main Reading Room), Gab. Map. (Cartographic Collection) and others. If there is a stamp with letters S or W in the front of the call number, it means that this item is in the Stock room. In such case you have to fill in an ordinary form (without red stripe), write the call number with the letter W or S and leave it the Lending Library.

ATTENTION! Books acquired by the Library after 1st of November 1995 you will find in the electronic catalogues.

Page elaborated by Anna Churska