Page 17 - DLIS408_INFORMATION_TECHNOLOGY-APPLICATIONSL SCIENCES

Information Technology and Application

Notes Sorting

In a title catalogue, one can distinguish two sort orders:
In the grammatical sort order (used mainly in older catalogues), the most important word
of the title is the first sort-term. The importance of a word is measured by grammatical
rules; for example, the first noun may be defined to be the most important word.
In the mechanical sort order, the first word of the title is the first sort-term. Most new
catalogues use this scheme, but still include a trace of the grammatical sort order: they
neglect an article (The, A, etc.) at the beginning of the title.
The grammatical sort order has the advantage that often, the most important word of the title is
also a good keyword and it is the word most users remember first when their memory is incomplete.
However, it has the disadvantage that many elaborate grammatical rules are needed, so that only
expert users may be able to search the catalogue without help from a librarian.
In some catalogues, persons’ names are standardized, i.e., the name of the person is always
(catalogued and) sorted in a standard form, even if it appears differently in the library material.
This standardization is achieved by a process called authority control. An advantage of the authority
control is that it is easier to answer questions (which works of some author does the library have).
On the other hand, it may be more difficult to answer questions (does the library have some
specific material?) if the material spells the author in a peculiar variant. For the cataloguer, it may
incur (too) much work to check whether Smith, J. is Smith, John or Smith, Jack.
For some works, even the title can be standardized. The technical term for this is uniform title. For
example, translations and re-editions are sometimes sorted under their original title. In many
catalogues, parts of the Bible are sorted under the standard name of the book(s) they contain. The
plays of William Shakespeare are another frequently cited example of the role played by a uniform
title in the library catalogue.
Many complications about alphabetic sorting of entries arise. Some examples:
Some languages know sorting conventions that differ from the language of the catalogue.
For example, some Dutch catalogues sort IJ as Y. Should an English catalogue follows this
suit And should a Dutch catalogue sort non-Dutch words the same way
Some titles contain numbers, for example 2001: A Space Odyssey. Should they be sorted as
numbers, or spelled out as Two thousand and one
De Balzac, Honoré or Balzac, Honoré de Ortega y Gasset, José or Gasset, José Ortegay
In a subject catalogue, one has to decide on which classification system to use. The cataloguer will
select appropriate subject headings for the bibliographic item and a unique classification number
(sometimes known as a “call number”) which is used not only for identification but also for the
purposes of shelving, placing items with similar subjects near one another, which aids in browsing
by library users, who are thus often able to take advantage of serendipity in their search process.

Task How author card is different from dictionary catalogue?

1.9 Online Catalogues

People working in Card Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., ca.1900-1920s
Online cataloguing has greatly enhanced the usability of catalogues, thanks to the rise of Machine
Readable Cataloguing = MARC standards in the 1960s. Rules governing the creation of catalogue
MARC records include not only formal cataloguing rules like AACR2 but also special rules
specific to MARC, available from the Library of Congress and also OCLC. MARC was originally
used to automate the creation of physical catalogue cards; now the MARC computer files are
accessed directly in the search process. OPACs have enhanced usability over traditional card
formats because:

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