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Public Health: A Guide to Library Research

Call Numbers for Public Health and Health Sciences

To find public health books on the library shelves, it is best to search for your subject (for example, "preventive health services") in QuickSearch (linked below). However, you can also browse the following call number area (call numbers tell you a book's location on the shelves). These will be found on the first floor of the library:

Call numbers that begin with RA 1 through RA 1270

If the Thompson Library Does Not Have a Book You Need

We have two options for getting a book you need that we don't have in our collection: Get This and Interlibrary Loan.

First: you can check to see if the book is available on the Ann Arbor campus by changing the "Search in" box in the Library Catalog (linked above) to "UM-Ann Arbor Libraries." If it is available there, you can request that it be sent here for you to check out using Get This (find more information on Get This through the link below).

If it's not available in Ann Arbor you can place an Interlibrary Loan request. This means that the book will come from a participating library elsewhere in the United States.

Follow the link below for information and instructions on how to use the Interlibrary Loan service.

Reading a Library of Congress Call Number

This video will explain how Library of Congress Classification works in order to aid you when locating books within the Thompson Library.

Visit the Library of Congress Classification Outline for more information.