Where are the W, X and Y books?
Student worker Charlotte Price asked this difficult question recently, and in true SLC fashion, chased down the answer. From Charlotte:
"I have found (most of) the answer to the insurmountable question: why are there no Ws, Xs, or Ys in the Library of Congress system?
A librarian at the LoC informed me that I was correct about the Os and Is in that they could be mistaken for digits, and the other letters were omitted for similar reasons:
W upside down is M, X means "not" or "extra" internally to LC, but the librarian had no clue about the Ys and could find no answer within the LoC. I believe it's used sometimes in Medical libraries or something similar to that effect... In any case, my curiosity has been satisfied."
Has yours? Got a library stumper for the reference staff? Leave us a comment or give us a call at x2225!
"I have found (most of) the answer to the insurmountable question: why are there no Ws, Xs, or Ys in the Library of Congress system?
A librarian at the LoC informed me that I was correct about the Os and Is in that they could be mistaken for digits, and the other letters were omitted for similar reasons:
W upside down is M, X means "not" or "extra" internally to LC, but the librarian had no clue about the Ys and could find no answer within the LoC. I believe it's used sometimes in Medical libraries or something similar to that effect... In any case, my curiosity has been satisfied."
Has yours? Got a library stumper for the reference staff? Leave us a comment or give us a call at x2225!
posted by Emily Drabinski at 11:04 AM
1 Comments:
This is really interesting! Thanks, Charlotte, for your intrepid detective work.
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