Sawyer and Schow have a series of open shelving, also known as the stacks. Having materials on open shelves allows you to go directly to the shelves and find the item you want. Open shelving also gives you the opportunity to browse the titles located near your item of interest.
The Libraries arrange materials on the shelves using the Library of Congress Classification System. This system groups together materials on similar subjects in the same call number range. Knowing the call number range for a particular subject will allow you to browse the shelves for materials.
Once you find a promising source, you can:
Unlike public and school libraries, most academic libraries use the Library of Congress Classification scheme to arrange books on the shelves.
First line: arranged alphabetically
Second line: read as a whole number
Third and fourth lines: arranged alphabetically, then numerically, with the number treated as a decimal
Last line: shelved chronologically.
If you're not sure a book contains the desired information, a good way to check is to look at the index or table of contents. The index is usually at the back of the book and will contain an alphabetized list of topics and words corresponding to page numbers. Use this rudimentary search engine to find where in the book your topic is covered! It's a good idea to check synonyms as well, since you don't know which word a book may use to refer to a topic. If a book doesn't have an index, a detailed table of contents is also a good place to look for clues on where your topic resides.