Medical Historical Library: Biographies and Collective Biographies

Historical Library | Medical Library

Biographies and Collective Biographies

Biographies are books about one or two persons. Collective biographies are works (such as biographical directories) about more than two persons. They are shelved in the Morse Reading Room of the Medical Library on the balcony. Biographies have special call numbers that enable them to be arranged alphabetically by subject of the biography. These call numbers consist of Biog or Coll Biog and a letter or letters and a decimal number. Thus W334 precedes W4. The A's start in the back of the balcony, to the left as you come up the stairs, and continue clockwise. Oversize biographies follow after regular biographies. Collective biographies are shelved after the Biographies and are arranged by author. Oversize collective biographies are shelved after the regular sized collective biographies.

Biographies and Collective Biographies published in the 20th century may be retrieved and checked out at the Circulation Desk any time that the Medical Library is open. They may be requested through Eli Express from other Yale libraries. Books circulate for two months. Biographies published before the 20th century are in the locked stacks and may be consulted in the Historical Library Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

To determine whether the Historical Library has a particular biography, consult ORBIS, the Yale University Library catalog. For biographies about a particular person, search the name by subject rather than author. For example, select subject and enter smith nathan.

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