Anthropology

Five College Libraries Books

Discovery Search lets you to find print books and ebooks at UMass and the other Five College libraries.

By default, results will include many formats including articles and films. To limit your results to books, find the 'Format' header on the results page and click 'Books' and/or 'eBooks'.

Books Beyond the Five College Libraries

When you find a book in WorldCat that you want to borrow, you can do so for free by following these steps:

1. Click the blue button on the right side of that page that says "View Access Options".
2. In the box that appears, click "Request Item(s) through Interlibrary Loan".
   • If you have never used Interlibrary Loan before, you will be prompted to complete a short form before proceeding.
3. Confirm that the information in the pre-populated form is correct and "Submit Request".

If the library is able to successfully fill your request, which is almost always the case, you will receive an email notification that the book is ready to use.

You can also check the status of your request by logging in on the Interlibrary Loan page.

Book Call Numbers

Every book assigned a call number, which serves two functions:

1. It tells you where a print book is located the way a street address tells you where a house is located.
2. It represents what the book is about using letters and numbers that stand in for different topics in the Library of Congress Classification System.

After you find the call number of a book (ex. P35 .O94 2013), you can use the W.E.B. Du Bois Library Call Number Directory to figure out which floor it is located on. When you visit that floor, there will be signs on the end of each shelving unit to help you zero in on the location of your book.

Since call numbers represent what a book is about, books on the same topic are grouped next to each other in the shelves. Next time you go upstairs to locate a book, take a minute to see who its neighbors are!

Anthropology Call Numbers

When a book has a call number that starts with GN, it means that it is primarily about some aspect of anthropology. You can use the chart below to identify call number ranges for various topics in anthropology.

Just remember: classification is tricky because while a book might be considered to have a few main topics, each book can only have one call number. It might seem obvious that books about linguistic anthropology would have call numbers that start with GN, however; these books usually have call numbers that start with P, which encompasses linguistics.

Anthropology Call Number Ranges

GN 49-298......................Physical anthropology. Somatology 
GN 51-59................................Anthropometry 
GN 62.8-265...........................Human variation 
GN 269-279............................Race (General) 
GN 280.7................................Man as an animal. Simian traits versus human traits 
GN 281-289............................Human evolution 
GN 282-286.7...............................Fossil man. Human paleontology 
GN 296-296.5.........................Medical anthropology
GN 301-674...................Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology 
GN 357-367............................Culture and cultural processes 
GN 378-396............................Collected ethnographies 
GN 397-397.7.........................Applied anthropology 
GN 406-517............................Cultural traits, customs, and institutions 
GN 406-442...................................Technology. Material culture 
GN 448-450.8................................Economic organization. Economic anthropology 
GN 451-477.7................................Intellectual life 
GN 478-491.7................................Social organization 
GN 492-495.2................................Political organization. Political anthropology 
GN 495.4-498................................Societal groups, ethnocentrism, diplomacy, warfare, etc. 
GN 502-517...................................Psychological anthropology 
GN 537-674............................Ethnic groups and races 
GN 550-674...................................By region or country 
GN 700-890...................Prehistoric archaeology

Book Subject Headings

You can search for books in Discovery Search using Library of Congress subject headings, which are standardized tags used to describe what a book is about. Using standardized terminology (aka controlled vocabulary) enables you to find books on a particular topic even when authors use varying terms.

For example, "interment," "inhumation," and "burial" all describe approximately the same social practice. The subject heading "burial" would appear on the record of books where the author uses any of these terms in order to help you find them. Instead of having to do searches for "interment," "inhumation," and "burial," you can do one subject search for "burial".

There are two ways to use subject headings:

1. Click on subject terms on a book record in Discovery to see other books on the same topic.
2. Create your own searches using subject headings from the Library of Congress Authorities page using the sample search format below.

⚠️Subject headings are a product of the power and position of their authors and in some cases may misrepresent or marginalize. Although there are efforts within libraries to redress this, subject headings remain in many cases a reflection of the historical moment in which they were created.

Sample Searches