National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN 1443-0568 | no. 69 | June 2004


Automated book delivery vehicle ‘Charlie’ rests in the Lower Ground Floor 2 stacks

The Importance of the Prefix

You may well ask why prefixes are so important on your interlibrary loan requests. And the answer is quite simple: they help us locate the material you request more promptly.

The National Library collections are very extensive and are housed in a number of different locations. Apart from the National Library building, the Library also has material—mostly serials—located in two warehouses approximately 15 kilometres away. The material within the National Library building material is spread over four floors and within each floor the stacks are subdivided by size. The prefix refers to the stack where the material may be located.

Here are some examples. Material with call numbers prefixed by N is housed in the eastern stacks—located about 500 meters from the Document Supply Service section on Lower Ground Floor 2. Material with the call number prefix of Nq is located one floor above. Material with the YY prefix is located in the Library’s western stack about 100 metres away from the Document Supply Service area in the other direction. Serials are the most complicated of all. Overseas serials have the S prefix and, in addition to size, the stacks are also subdivided by date. Overseas serials published before 1990 are located in one of the Library’s warehouses as part of 59 kilometres of out-housed material. There is also material without prefixes appended to the call numbers at all.

You can see that the prefix may be a crucial component of the National Library call number so, to speed up delivery, please take care to include it when you send in your requests.
—Maria Milligan, Document Supply Service

Above: Automated book delivery vehicle ‘Charlie’
rests in the Lower Ground Floor 2 stacks
Below: Lower Ground Floor 2 stacks
Lower Ground Floor 2 stacks

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