Significant progress has been made in recent years to provide online cataloging records for the division's holdings. The phrase “Request in: Rare Book/Special Collections Reading Room” appears at the bottom of online records for rare books.

If the book is in a special collection within the division's holdings, an abbreviation of that collection name is part of the call number.

Examples include "Avrich Coll" for the Paul Avrich Collection and "Am Imp" for the American Imprint Collection. Books in the collection can be found by searching the Library of Congress Online Catalog for "Paul Avrich Collection (Library of Congress)".

For materials that have not been individually cataloged in the Library's online catalog, you can consult finding aids listed in Related Resources.