Mathematics Research Guide: Finding Books

Electronic books (eBooks) are a great resource for quick access to books the Library does not owned in print.

Ebrary

Non-fiction and scholarly ebooks that can be read and searched online or downloaded to your device.

eBooks on EBSCOHost

Collection of recently published and public domain ebooks across disciplines and genres.

How to Read call numbers in the Library of Congress System, as used in the Library at Worcester State.

• Books are a great way to find overviews of your topic: whether you know a lot or a little about your topic, an overview can help you organize complex topics in order to narrow or expand your specific focus.
• Books also give historical perspective, and offer more in-depth information than you will find on the surface Web.
• Check the bibliography and/or reference notes in the book for references to more material on your topic.

• One Search: Catalog of all materials owned or licensed by the WSU Library, along with listings from other Summon libraries and a number of major Databases (such as JSTOR, PubMed, and ERIC) that index articles. It is important to note that WSU does not own or have access to everything listed in Summon. To limit your search to only the WSU collections, use the Classic Catalog.

•  HELM Catalog: Catalog of all materials owned or licensed by the WSU Library, including books, journals, magazines, videos, microfilm, computer files (including eBooks). Note that the Catalog lists journals owned by WSU, but not the individual articles inside them. To identify specific articles, use a Database that indexes articles. This is also the place where you can login to your Library account and renew books. This catalog also lists the materials owned by other institutions in the HELM consortium. The HELM members do share all the print books. You may request any print books from other member libraries at the catalog.

Finding Books in Other Libraries:

WorldCat  Database of libraries worldwide. Easy searching, identify local library holdings by zip code 

Google Books  Much full text, but not complete for all titles. Great way to find a chapter or scan table of contents to see what titles are available on your topic

The list below is a breakdown of the Call Number ranges and the specific area of mathematics and computer science covered. To browse the collection just go to these call numbers on the 3rd floor of the LRC, or search in the Library Catalog using these key terms.

Subclass QA: QA1-QA939

• QA 1-43      General
• QA 47-59    Tables
• QA 71-90     Instruments and machines

QA 75-76.95        Calculating machines

QA 75.5-76.95     Electronic computers.  Computer science

QA 76.75-76.765  Computer software

• QA 101-145          Elementary Mathematics - Arithmetic
• QA 150-272.5       Algebra
• QA 273-280          Probabilities. Mathematical statistics
• QA 299.6-433       Analysis
• QA 440-699         Geometry. Trigonometry. Topology
• QA 801-939         Analytic mechanics

The library has a wide variety of eBooks that cover computer science, mathematics and statistics. Just use the search box on the Library Website (or on the Overview  page of this guide), and then limit your search to books / ebooks.