A patron -- Ph.D. candidate in history, familiar with the collection, came in tonight trying to uncover the call numbers for certain statistical publications produced by the Third Reich. He remembered that the call number began "Ger Doc 9."
I tried Vida's famous rolodex, HOLLIS "other call numbers" and even -- in desperation -- "Government number," all to no avail. Ger Doc(s) never surfaced. Finally, I went to the basement with him, got him in the general area and set him loose.
Puzzled, I asked JC what I'd done wrong. Here's a tip: use Widener call number searches for paper documents with a geographic or country name prefix, followed by the abbreviation "doc." This system owes its origins in many cases to the old Widener class system, which identified countries thus. Ger= Germany; Ind=Indian subcontinent (including Pakistan); Afr=African continent, Br=British Isles (including Ireland), and so forth.
This system makes perfect sense as soon as you remember that Widener is the parent of Gov Docs -- the classifications that are neither LC or SuDocs are part of that legacy.
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