Books and Videos
Every book in the library is assigned a unique call number that classifies the book according to subject. Books are shelved in call number order throughout the library. Books in sociology are scattered across many different call number areas, however, the information below provides a general idea of call number areas and their topics in sociology. Books starting with H are located on the 2nd floor, in the North Wing of the library.
Primary Library of Congress call numbers for sociology:
E 184 - E 185 American ethnic groups.
HM Sociology (general and theoretical). Social psychology.
HN Social history. Social problems. Social reform.
HQ The family. Marriage. Women. Feminism. Sexual Life. Divorce.
HT Communities. Classes. Races. Slavery. Urban Sociology
HV Social and public welfare. Substance abuse. Criminology.
HX Socialism. Communism. Anarchism.
To find books and videos at USF, search the library catalog. The catalog searches broad descriptions of books and videos.
- Search by keyword using your own terms and use the limits on the left-hand side of the results screen to focus your search. Keywords are words you would normally think of to describe your topic. They can appear anywhere in the record (title, author, subject, publisher, etc.)
- Use keywords, titles, or authors, to point you to relevant subject headings. For example, when searching gay parenting as a keyword, the book below came up as a result. Click on any relevant subject headings that appear at the bottom of the record. Searching on a subject heading retrieves many books that did not appear when searching by keyword. Subject headings are "official" subject headings approved by the Library of Congress; they are hard to guess on your own.
Photo credit: Confederate monument protest, UNC Chapel Hill, 8/31/17, (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
Find Books Using Google Books
Google Books includes thousands of digitized books from publishers and partner libraries. Because Google Books searches the full text of books, you can often get good results with more narrow, specific searches and find books you might not have found in the library catalog. You will not be able to read the entire text of most recently published books in Google Books. Search the USF library catalog to find a copy of the book you want.