The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Dewey Decimal Number: 616.02774092

What the numeric field and B actually show

The numeric display comes from the numeric entry after removing the slash used in the original field. The B is preserved as a separate nonnumeric value. It is not a digit to append, a replacement for the decimal part, or a second number that can be sorted mathematically. Keeping both source values visible matters because simplifying the record to a single number would hide a real feature of the catalogue evidence. The book's treatment of an individual life is also explicit in its subject headings.

Sources: [1]

This does not mean that every local library will place the book under a large B sign. The selected record supplies bibliographic classification data, while a local holding can provide its own location and shelf label. If you are looking for this title in a biography area and cannot find it, search the complete title and inspect the holding's location. The useful clue is the record's simultaneous attention to a named person and a medical subject, rather than a promise about a particular building's arrangement.

Sources: [1]

A person’s history and a research material

Skloot's account describes a story involving Henrietta Lacks, the HeLa cell line and the family's experience of its scientific use. Her own book description emphasises the interaction of race, ethics, medicine and family knowledge. Johns Hopkins supplies a separate institutional account: a sample of Lacks's cancer cells was taken during her treatment in 1951, and those cells proved capable of continuing to multiply in laboratory conditions. These sources explain why a book about a life can also lead readers into the history of research.

Sources: [2] [3]

The distinction between a person and a cell line is essential to reading the title. Immortal here should not be taken as a claim that Henrietta Lacks remained alive. The continuing laboratory history and the human biography operate on different timelines. A useful set of notes therefore keeps events in Lacks's life separate from later experiments, distribution of cells and responses from relatives. This preserves the person at the centre of the account while making the scientific history easier to follow.

Sources: [2] [3]

How the subject headings open different research paths

The catalogue names Henrietta Lacks and includes headings for cancer patients' biography, African American women's history, human experimentation, HeLa cells, cancer research, cell culture and medical ethics. That list is more informative than calling the book simply medical nonfiction. It reveals several questions a reader might bring: whose life is being described, how a laboratory material became important, and how people understood or contested the practices surrounding it. Different questions can lead to different follow-up sources even after the same book is found.

Sources: [1]

For a science assignment, HeLa cells and cell culture are productive search terms. For a historical assignment, the biography and experimentation headings point toward another set of records. For a discussion of ethics, ask what information people had, what decisions they could make, and whose account is being heard. Those are reading questions suggested by the record and the book's description. They should not be flattened into a claim that the classification itself resolves every ethical dispute raised by the narrative.

Sources: [1] [2]

Read an institution’s account alongside the book

Johns Hopkins's account acknowledges that the institution could have done more to inform and engage with Lacks's family. Its page also describes its role in sharing the cells. This is a useful primary institutional source, but it has a different purpose and standpoint from Skloot's narrative. A reader comparing the two should identify who is speaking and which aspect of the history is being addressed. Agreement on the existence and importance of the cells does not make two accounts identical in emphasis.

Sources: [3]

Build a comparison around specific questions rather than a verdict on which short summary tells the whole story. What does each source say about communication with the family? What period does it describe? Does it discuss laboratory practice, personal experience or institutional responsibility? Mark any gap as a question for further reading. This method is especially appropriate for a book whose catalogue headings already span science, biography, history and ethics. It allows the different evidence types to contribute without substituting a general web summary for the book.

Sources: [1]

Compare another life told through scientific work

The Code Breaker, Walter Isaacson's account centred on Jennifer Doudna and gene editing, has 576.5 in its selected record. Its named-person subject appears alongside CRISPR and genetics research. The Henrietta Lacks record instead combines a medical number with B and headings reflecting a patient's life, research materials and ethics. Both bring people into scientific history, but the roles of those people and the research questions differ. Calling both biographies is therefore a beginning, not a complete subject comparison.

Sources: [4] [1]

For a paired reading, ask how a narrative changes when its central person is a researcher rather than the source of biological material used in research. Follow who makes decisions, who is credited, and how scientific developments affect people outside the laboratory. These are concrete comparison questions supported by the descriptions of the two books. Their different catalogue results help orient the reading list, while the comparison itself requires attention to the narratives and the evidence each author presents.

Sources: [4] [2]

The copy represented on this page

The source record identifies Crown Publishers and records the publication statement as copyright 2010. It lists the ISBN used here without a separate edition statement. That absence should remain an absence; this page does not invent a first-edition label from the date. The catalogue describes illustrations and plates as well as the main text. When an assignment uses a photograph, caption or page reference, compare the actual format in hand with this print record rather than assuming that every later or electronic version has the same layout.

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Sources for this edition guide

1. Library of Congress: selected edition record
2. Rebecca Skloot: about The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
3. Johns Hopkins Medicine: institutional account of Henrietta Lacks’s legacy
4. The Code Breaker: separately sourced scientific biography comparison