19 Call, book and collection numbers: use of Cutter author tables

Dr M P Satija

Structure:

1. Rise of Library Science in Late 19th Century USA

2. Emergence of C A Cutter

3. Book Numbers Definition and Need

3.1 Origin of Book Numbers

3.2 Cutter’s Original Attempt

4. Functions of Book Numbers

5. Cutter-Sanborn Table: the Enduring One 5.1. Online Edition

5.2. Operating the Cutter Tables

5.2.1. Names not Exactly Matching

5.3. Author number for biographical and Literary works

5.4. Literary works

5.5. Prolific authors

5.6. Collective biographies

6. Current Trends

6.1 OCLC expansion of the Cutter table

7. Glossary

8. References

1. Rise of Library Science in Late 19th Century USA

Till the early nineteenth century, librarianship was a profession of a gentleman scholar, who presided over a library only with his vast learning. Love for books was the only qualification to be a library curator, as he was called then. Value of a library in a society and its role in educating the public and lifelong learning of an individual was being recognized in an incipient democratic and industrial society. Education and books were proliferating. More libraries were needed for a growing literate population to keep them literate and aware citizens. Better professionally trained librarians were required to manage expanding library networks with an orientation to serving the patrons. Big collections needed better organization. This milieu gave birth to the profession, and leaders emerged in the profession which valued their calling. The United States, a nascent nation, was one such country.

Charles Ammi Cutter (1837-1903): The Prince of Library Science 2. Emergence of C A Cutter

Charles Ammi Cutter was one such self-trained genius and a pioneer library leader. He formulated theory and practice of librarianship only out of his experience, insights and vision. If Melvil Dewey (1851-1931) is the father of modern librarianship then Cutter with his varied and lasting contribution can safely be called the Prince of the Profession.

2.1 Birth and Education

He was born on March 14, 1837 in Boston, Massachusetts in a merchant family. In his childhood he lived with his grandfather and two unmarried aunts who were cultured and devout christian. They provided him access to best education of his time. Unitarian Church was envisaged as the suited profession for this brilliant, but physically frail child with myopic eyes. Therefore, his early education was in classics and the Bible. In 1856 he entered the Harvard Divinity School from where he graduated after three years in 1859. While still at the Divinity School he was appointed its student librarian from 1857-59.There he rearranged the collection and prepared its catalogue. This was an unintended entry into a profession wherein he rose like a star and became one of its immortal architects. Chief cataloguer Dr Ezra Abott being happy with his work got him appointed his assistant in the Harvard College library in 1860. He worked diligently there till the end of 1868. Under the guidance of Abott he prepared a public catalogue on cards. It became the foundation of his later work at the Boston Athenaeum library (1869-1893) where he succeeded the famous William Fredrick Poole(1821-1894), famous for his Poole’s Index to the Periodical Literature. Boston Athenaeum, founded in 1807, is one of the oldest and distinguished independent libraries in the USA. Today its collection of half a million volumes specializes in arts, literature, biography and history. It has made lasting contribution in the development of scholarship in the New England since early 19th century. Such a specialized library with high profile scholars as its users provided an apt laboratory and a field for his work. At the Athenaeum he prepared a dictionary catalogue in a book form of the 100,000 strong collection of the library. The entire work which took eight years (1874-1882) was enshrined in five volumes running to 3042 pages. In order to prepare this catalogue according to standard and explicitly formulated rules he wrote his, now classic, Rules for a Dictionary Catalogue (1876) revised by him in 1889 and 1891. The fourth and last edition published posthumously was edited by his nephew William Parker Cutter, who was a librarian and later became his biographer. So enduring is this work that very safely he can be described as the father of modern cataloguing. “All modern cataloguing rules are influenced by Cutter’s rules…” writes a famous Professor John P Immroth. The principles he formulated for vocabulary control are still applied in subject cataloguing tools like the Library of Congress Subject Headings and the Sears List of Subject Headings.In 1893 Cutter resigned from the Boston Athenaeum to become librarian of the newly established Forbes Library, Northampton, MA in 1894. There he experimented with his theories of library administration and services. He initiated new services of lending books and realia to a wider community of users, and developed innovative exchange and extension programmes.

2.2 Contribution

Today, Cutter is remembered mostly for his three major contributions: the other two being the Expansive Classification (EC) and the Cutter-author tables. The EC (1891-1903) was developed due to his disliking for Dewey’s decimal system (1876). Instead of a pure notation of the decimal numbers he employed alphabets to denote main classes and numerals for further divisions. Since then many a classification system has used this kind of mixed notation, which is more suitable for an ever growing universe of knowledge. The scheme consisted of seven schedules, or expansions, each contained in a separate volume, and had more details over the previous one. Each expansion could be used independently. The first expansion was meant for, say a village library with a small collection, the seventh for a university or a national library. However, Cutter died before completing the seventh volume. In some ways it was considered more logical and scientific than the Dewey’s system, though it could not replace it. Arrangement of its main classes in evolutionary order is considered scientific. This classification had many innovative and commendable features which were incorporated by the Library of Congress Classification. H E Bliss (1870-1955) also adopted some of its features in his Bibliographic Classification (1949-53). No wonder then it has been described as classifier’s classification, and a stepping stone to future.

2.3. Cutter-Tables

In connection with the Expansive Classification, Cutter devised a system of abbreviations for the names of authors or headings to be used for sub arranging books on the shelves having the same class number. Developed in the form of author table, it was a simple alphanumeric code standing for the heading under which the publication is catalogued, usually, a name be it of a person, corporate body or geographic entity. Today, many versions of Cutter tables are available, and the terms cutter or cuttering have become eponyms.

2.4. His Place in the Library Pantheon

Cataloguing and classification were not his only contributions to the then emerging discipline of library science. With other professional giants like Melvil Dewey, he founded and nurtured the American Library Association in 1876, and remained its president from 1887 to 1889. It rose to become the largest, fully active and most powerful library association in the world. Also with Dewey he founded the Library Journal and edited it from 1881-1893, and finally he contributed towards the development and maturation of the then burgeoning library education. He died on September 6, 1903 leaving behind his wife Sarah whom he had married in 1863, and two engineer sons Louis and Roland. A person of cheerful disposition, he played hard, was fond of walking, cycling, driving, boating, theater and concerts. Alive to everything fine and good, he enjoyed and loved life and nature –the sun, stars, rain and the mountains.. This simple and sweet tempered man was considerate, modest and a savant, a typical New Englander in the eternal company of the likes of Thoreau and Emerson.

3. Book Numbers Definition and Need

A book number has a very onerous role in shelf classification. It takes shelf arrangement of documents to a point where classification per se cannot. Class number alone is not able to uniquely indvdiualise a document on the library shelves. A book number determines the unique relative place of a document in the library store. A library may have say ten books on the history or Ancient India or five general biographies of Mahatma Gandhi by different authors. The question is how to further sub-arrange different books having exactly the same class number. If these books within the same class are not finely and discretely arranged then the purpose of classification is defeated. We will have pockets of chaos on the shelves. We need a devise to sub-arrange these documents to a logical end. Broader classes may rather require more fine book numbers. This devise of sub-arranging documents having the same specific class number is called book number. A book number may be based on either one or all of the characteristics of a document such as author, title, year of publication, language, form, volume and edition. The function of a book number starts from where that of the class number ends. Book numbers are satellites of class number, so have no independent value.

3.1 Origin of Book Numbers

Pre-Deweyean shelf arrangements, such as fixed location systems, never required book numbers. The call number provided complete and exact address of the document on the shelves. Dewey’s relative system of shelf arrangement and the all the classification systems that followed it required another device for sub- arrangement as the class number stopped at the subject number and many books by that method shared the same class number. It was necessary to necessary to give a unique number to each document. Dewey suggested adding serial number 1, 2, 3 etc. in accession order to individualize a book. C. A. Cutter criticized Dewey’s accession method, as he thought that the accession arrangement yielded neither logical sub-arrangement nor was of any mnemonic aid in retrieval. Cutter proposed a book numbering system which totally disregarded the book size, and provided a simple and mnemonic method to convert author name into decimal numbers from the following table:

A-BO	0	M	5
Br-C	1	N-R	6
D-F	2	S	7
G-H	3	T-V	8
I-L	4	W-Z	9

Thus any name with S would receive the author number 7. No alphabet was used. As decimal numbers, these could be expanded to distinguish two or more authors whose surname started with the same initial letter. Here Cutter made three enduring contributions:

1. In transcription, book numbers were distinguished from class numbers.

2. By rejecting book size as a characteristic of sub-arrangement, he emancipated classification from the size shackles inherited from the relatively dark ages in classification

3. More importantly, he introduced decimal notation for author numbers to intercalate new names and to expand the existing ones

Late in the nineteenth century, many new and ingenious book numbering ideas flooded the classification horizon. It was then a current and favourite topic of study and deliberation. In its February 1879 issue, the incipient Library Journal published a symposium on book numbers by leading librarians such as Melvil Dewey, C. A. Cutter, Josephus Nelson Larned (Librarian, Young Men’s Association Library, Buffalo), John Edmands (Librarian, Philadelphia Mercantile Library), and John Fitzpatrick (Librarian, Bronson Library, Waterbury, Connecticut). Here John Edmands (1820-1915) made an innovative and everlasting contribution to book numbers by suggesting that the author’s initial letter be followed by decimal notation for rest of the letters in the name which would represent the complete name. The number could thus at least suggest vaguely the author’s name. Cutter at first objected to Edmands’ idea, fearing perhaps that it would again promiscuously mix the class number and the book number. He rather preferred alphabets for class numbers and pure decimal numbers for book bumbers. However, Cutter relented, realizing the merits of Edmands’ suggestion. C. A. Cutter was later to take Edmands’ method to a highly developed system by which Cutter is today eminently known, and which has earned him a place in the annals of English language and world librarianship. At the annual conference of the American Library Association held on September 25, 1885, Dewey reaffirmed the mnemonic value of mixed notation of letters and numerals as “the best plan I can conceive for alphabetical arrangement, and I hope someone will make the necessary table for applying it”. This “someone” was to be Charles Ammi Cutter.

3.2 Cutter’s Original Attempt

Very soon after the 1879 symposium, Cutter in 1880 devised a table for author numbers for commercial sale as advertised in the Library Journal (September-October 5, 1880; 293). This table, the first of a long line of Cutter tables, was based on his experience of classification at the Boston Athenaeum library. Of this table, now non-extant, John Comaromi (1837-1991),a renowned scholar of book numbers and editor of the DDC-20( 1989) surmises: that “was probably composed… of three pieces of paste board held together by cloth tape”. Its 1888 version is available whose extract is reproduced below:

Ger	31	Have	Ac	1	Ar	Sa	1	Sh
Gerr	32	Hax	Aid	2	Arc	Sai	2	Sha
Gess	33	Hayf	Aig	3	Are	Sal	3	She

As per instructions any name/word beginning with a consonant (except S) requires one initial letter followed by two numbers from the table. For example,

Beard	B 34	Holmes	H 73
Browning	B 82	Huxley	H98
Churchill	C 47	Lewis	L 58
Franklin	F 85	Russell	R 91
Grahm	G 76	Tennyson	T 25
Hay	H 32

A word beginning with a vowel or S requires first two letters followed by a single digit:

Abbot Ab2 Olney Ol6

Anne An7 Upton Up 1

Edwards Ed9 Sinclair Si 6

Ives Iv3 Smit Sm5

Similarly, the author number for any word beginning with Sc consists of three initial letters followed by one digit. And li, lw, lx, ly, Oo, Uo, Uq, Uu, Ss, and Sx are used without any numerical digit following them, obviously as English names beginning with the above letters, except Li and Ly, are rare. Several versions of this table are available printed up to 1886. Originally known as Cutter’s Alfabetic-Order Table, it is now known as Cutter’s Two-Figure Author Table. Instructions for using the table were made available in a separate booklet, which was also published in different sources. By the mid 1880s Cutter tables had become quite popular, and many librarians including Melvil Dewey swore by their usefulness at various fora. Approval of as commanding a personality as Dewey imparted to it an added momentum to its popularity. A noteworthy feature of the table was that the distribution of numbers to names was based somewhat on their statistical frequency of occurrence, though the process was not carried to perfection.

4. Functions of Book Numbers

Book numbers indvidualise a book so that it “ may be quickly and accurately placed, called for, found and charged’’ wrote Melvil Dewey in 1898. Miss Bertha R. Barden(1937) in her enduring study of book numbers has described the following six uses of book numbers which are still fully valid to this day :

1. To arrange books in order on the shelves.

2. To provide a brief and accurate call number for each book.

3. To locate a particular book on the shelf.

4. Provide a symbol for charging books to borrowers.

5. To facilitate the return of books on the shelves.

6. To assist in quick identification of a book when inventories are taken. It helps in stock-taking. unabated today. Of all the versions of Cutter tables, two-thirds sold are those of Cutter-Sanborn affiliation.

Cutter had asked Miss Sanborn only to expand the table to three figures, whereas she produced an independent work which could not be used by the libraries using Cutter’s two-figure table to expand the existing author numbers. Thus his two-figure table was falling into disuse. This so disturbed Cutter that he tried to repudiate the new work; and himself set to revise the two-figure author table. He devised a three-figure author table which was ready for sale by January 1902. It has more than 20,800 names and numbers. Cutter did much to promote the sale of his new table,but to little avail. By that time the Cutter-Sanborn table had become well entrenched. A survey of book numbers in the USA in 1996 found that about 52% of the book numbers were based on Cutter-Sanborn, whereas 37% still used Cutter Table. It is an irony of life that a work which Cutter once described as a mistake and even tried to disown, is the major living and applied work associated with his name today.

Cutter’s new table was not well planned and consequently inconsistent: A, E, Q, S, X, Y, Z used two digits; I, O, U were followed by one digit; and for all other letters the number of digits varied from one to three; the letter X with two different sets of numbers confused many. Moreover the mechanics of the distribution of the numbers over the names is not explained. The much disliked convention of using the first two letters for the words beginning with vowels or S and three letters for names beginning with Sc still persisted:

However, this table is still in use as evidenced by the reprinting of the major three versions of his tables in 1969, reset with modifications and reprinted in unbroken A/Z order of two columns with letters on the left with their corresponding numbers against them on the right. These were edited by Esther M. Swift and Paul K. Swanson. It is highly significant that Paul K. Swanson is from the Forbes Library, Northampton, Massachusetts, where Cutter served as founder librarian from 1894 to 1903. Esther M. Swift is the Editor of H. R. Huntting Company, Inc., Chicopee, Massachusetts, distributor of the tables from 1964 to 1979. Today these tables are distributed by Libraries Unlimited of Littleton, Colorado. Another version of the Swnson-Swift revision of Cutter –Sanborn three figure author table is published by Hargrove House, Littleton, CO, USA (www.cuttertables.com). Richard Ammi Cutter, grandson of C. A. Cutter, holds the present copyright. Mounted on board and bound with sturdy covers in metal spiral binding, physically and typographically these are much improved editions. Swanson-Swift revisions have better publication standards with some minor corrections. The rearrangement in a single unbroken sequence of alphabets makes the tables easier to use. Inevitably these editions are welcome in libraries using in-house typed and worn out copies for want of any commercially distributed versions commensurate with the high demand, though the Cutter-Sanborn table was also reprinted and distributed in 1969 by H. R. Hunting Inc. In the absence of the availability of any authentic edition, many spuriously reproduced editions have been marketed. Swanson-Swift versions may stem this tide of unauthorized versions.

5.1. Online Edition

Now Cutter-Sanborn table is also available on the Web as open source at http://ub.uibk.ac.at/fbg/author/author5.htm. Some excerpts from these tables taken for some alphabets are reproduced below:

5.2. Operating the Cutter Tables

There is not much difference in how to use the different versions of Cutter tables. Here the use of the Cutter-Sanborn table is described briefly. To assign a Cutter number, determine the first word of the heading (it could be a place name, personal or corporate name, or the title) and locate the number corresponding to it in the table under that alphabet. When a number has been found, it is to be preceded by the initial letter of the heading. This will be the Cutter number. For example, John Abbott will have the Cutter number A 127.

5.2.1. Names not Exactly Matching

But more often than not there will be no number to fit the name heading congruously. It is more so for Indian names as the Cutter table mostly lists Christian and American names. For Indian names and names for other cultures, many adjustments have to be done. In that case, the closest approximation to that number will be taken, for example, Maxwell will be M 465, and Macbeth M 118. Usually a heading will fall between two words in the table, in such a case, the lower number of the two is to be assigned. For example, a name Pehlwan, which has not been enumerated, falls between Peg 376 and Pei 377, will be denoted by P376. Similarly a cutter number for any word or combination of letters may be assigned:

Chaucer	C 496	India	I 39
Hardy, T	H 272	Panama	P 187

Similarly for Jacob, which falls between Jaco 15, and Jacobi 16, we will use J 16 for Jacobs. Singh which falls between Sin 615 and Sins 618, we will use S 615. Jaidev falls between Jah 25 and Jal 26, we will get Cutter number, J 25. If there are two or more authors with the same surname in the same class, these may be differentiated by extending a number for one author by a digit. This is manual adjustment varying from library to library, e.g., Aldous Huxley H986 and Thomas Huxley H 9865.

5.3. Author number for biographical and Literary works

In the case of biographies, it is not the author but the biographee (the subject) which is used for assigning a cutter number. For example, the biography of Winston Churchill (by Robert Balch) will have the cutter number C 563. Similarly the Life of Benjamin Franklin by V. Adams will be number F 831. This will help to consolidate at one place all the biographies of a luminary. The version biographies of a luminary may be further distinguished by author’s name, e.g.,:

Life of W. Churchill By Balch C563B
Biography of Churchill by Mark Smith C563S

If further needed the work number i.e. initial letter of the title may be added, e.g.,

C563BL Life of Churchill by Balch.

C563SB Biography of Churchill by Smith

5.4. Literary works

However, a difficulty arises in assigning author marks in classes where the host and associated books are to be collocated especially in works of creative literature. Elaborate rules exist to collocate the works on and by a prolific writer, and to bring together all the editions of a given book. For this purpose, one more facet, termed work number/work mark is required. The work number, usually consisting of the initial of the first word (excluding the indefinite article) in the title, follows the author number.

822.8 Wilde, Oscar: Lady Windermer’s Fan

W672L

Here L has been taken from the word “Lady” in the title. It is known as work number. It helps to distinguish one work of the author from another and will also file them in alphabetical order. For example, the following works of Aldous Huxley in class 823.9 will get the following author and work numbers:

Antic Hay Crome Yellow Those Barren Leaves

H986A H986C H986T

Hence all the fiction works of Huxley will get arranged alphabetically by title.

As said earlier in biographies the work number is derived from the name of the writer (not from the title), so that all biographies of one person are arranged alphabetically by the name of the biographer, i.e. author. For example:

B Life of Benjamin Franklin by V. Adams

F831A

B Life of Benjamin Franklin by B. D. Maurice.

F831M

5.5. Prolific authors

The most difficult role for book/work numbers is in the case of prolific and much written about writers. Here work numbers have not only to bring the host and associated books together, but also to file them in a logical order. For example,

1. Complete works or selections should precede the individual works;

2. A critical appreciation and language translations should follow the original;

3. Autobiographies, letters, etc. should come before the biographies.

4. Similarly, bibliographies dictionaries, Concordances should also be given a proper place in that class.

To effect this desired arrangement, the work number usually consist of two or more digits or some times no digit at all. Usually the digit z or Z is reserved as the criticism facet in the work number. This is followed by the initial of the critic. For example, An Introduction to Pope by Pat Rogers (London, 1975) will get the call numbers

821.5

P811ZR

Here R is for Rogers, the author of the book. In case of critical appreciation of an individual work the digit Z follows the work number which in turn is followed by the critic-author’s initial. For example, Pope: Rape of the Lock: A critical study by J. S. Cunningham (London, 1961) will get the call number

821.5

P825RZC

where R is from Rape… and C is from Cunningham, and Z of course for critical study. It will bring together all the commentaries or critical works on this specific work and file them alphabetically by their authors. The letter x is usually reserved for collected works of an individual literary author. The x is followed by the name of the compiler/editor. For example, Alexander Pope, Poetical Works, edited by H. Davis, will get the call number

821.5

P825xD.

Thus collected works will follow all the individual works and their commentaries, but precede the critical appreciation of the individual author as a whole. It is, however, an intricate technique requiring finer adjustment to ensure that no two book numbers are identical within a given class. Local adjustments will have to be made here and there, so no rule applies irrevocably except that of local convenience. Such variations must be listed in the authority recorded. It naturally provoked Anna C. Laws, an early scholar of book numbers, to define author notation “as a system of rules to be judiciously broken”.

In addition to Cutter tables for alphabetical arrangement, many other alphabetical systems, either simplification of Cutter numbers or rivals to them, have surfaced from time to time. H. E. Bliss and Zaidee Brown suggested simplifications to one-figure author numbers for small libraries. A. P. Massey of Case Library, Cleveland, in 1881 proposed a method for arranging biography, literature, and miscellany. Massey used literal mnemonic for his class number: B for biography, F for fiction, and so on. Each class has about 700 numbers for author names. These numbers are neither decimal nor are preceded by any initial alphabet in transcription. However, the distribution of numbers to names was according to frequency of occurrence of names in biographical dictionaries. Otherwise there is nothing to commend such a table, and use has dissipated over time.

5.6. Collective biographies

In 1893, C. R. Olin, Librarian of Butchell College (now University of Akron) devised a table to supplement Cutter’s two-figure author table for arranging collective biographies such as biographical dictionaries. According to this table collective biographies are arranged by editor/compiler preceded the individual biographies arranged by the name of the biographee. He used the letter A followed by numbers 11 to 99 to denote all names of editors and compilers of collective biographies. An extract from the table is given below:

Ba	12	H	44	Y	98x
Ch	17	I	45	Z	99
Da	25	Na	64
Ea	28	Th	87

Author numbers for the following editors are given against them as examples:

Adams A 11 Thomas A 87

Baker A 12 Webster A 94

Chambers A 17 Young A 98

Nanda A64 Zimmerman A 99

To distinguish biographies of persons whose surnames begin with A from the collective biographies, all individual biographies of persons whose surname starts with A began with the first two initial letters followed by a number from Cutter’s two figure author table. For example, a biography of Arnold will be Ar 6. For the rest of the problems, Cutter two-figure tables rules were used as such. The Olin table remained appended to the Dewey Decimal Classification from edition 7 to 11 (1911-1932).

first decade of the 20th century. After that only innovative work was of S R Ranganathan who proposed a very ingenious and comprehensive chronological system for his Colon Classification (1933). By then the shelfllisting procedures had become a passé art. Published literature was only descriptive of prevailing practices. Again in 1980s there was a small spurt of interest with the publication of two important textbooks by Donald J Lehnus (1980) and John P Comaromi (1981) covering almost the same ground . The age of electronic information almost assumed the end of road for them. But such gloomy predictions have not proved true. No doubt, bar-coding may serve some of the purpose of book numbers to distinguish one store-item from the other — howsoever similar. But in hybrid libraries with growing collections of prints and other information bearing objects (IBOs) some device for discrete and granular sub arrangement of the items will always be needed. There the book numbers are still indispensable. There is also a trend for designing expert systems for cutter numbers. It is clear that book numbers are expecting a revival of interest though on a small scale in the new information environment.

6.1 OCLC expansion of the Cutter table:

It has been rightly pointed by Edward O’Neil in the OCLC report that “ The resolution power of the cutter tables has diminished due to growth in library collections and the increasing incidence of corporate names and title main entries”. It has always been seen that it often requires adjustment and manual processing to prevent shelf list conflicts and cluttering on the shelves to provide a unique call numbers to each document. To meet such situations the OCLC has expanded the cutter tables to “balance the distributions of main entries over the cutter table entries”. Electronic version available at www.oclc.org/dewey is compatible with existing two figure or three figure tables. It provides readymade cutter numbers by just filling in the name/heading in the box for which the cutter mark is required. This table is versatile and also facilities algorithmic cuttering.

7. Glossary

Author number: An alphanumeric number denoting the name of the author/editor/any heading for alphabetical sub-arrangements of the books having the same class numbers. Strictly speaking, it is a part of the book number.

Book number: A number/code devised to sub-arrange documents having the same class numbers. This is a satellite of the class number. Mostly there are two systems of book number: alphabetical and chronological. Alphabetical systems code the heading under which the documents have been catalogued by AACR. Chronological systems sub arrange documents sub-arrange documents by the year of publication.

Call number: A complex of numbers determining the unique place of the document in the library. It consists of section/collection number, class number and the book number taken in this order.

Cutter Mark: An alphanumeric number taken from any of C.A. Cutter’s Author table to convert the Author’s name or for that reason any heading, into symbols for brevity and convenience of shelving and location of the documents.

Cuttering: Process of assigning the author number for alphabetical sub-arrangement of books. Sub-arrangement code may or may not be taken from Cutter’s table. For ex, many libraries only use first three initial letters of author’s name/heading for sub-arrangement. A book by B.K. Sharma gets the Cutter code SHA. Cuttering has become an eponym in LIS terminology.

Shelf arrangement: Arrangement of books/documents on the shelves by some predetermined systematic order. Since ancient times, the librarians have tried many shelf arrangement systems ranging from size of the book, language or author and subject. These days though shelf arrangement is mostly in classified order, yet for different documents, many other systems are prevalent.

8. References

(Accessed on 15 may 2007).
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“Plans for Numbering, with Special Reference to Fiction: A Library Symposium,”Barden B.R. 1937., Book Numbers: A Manual for students with a Basic Code of Rules, American Library Association, Chicago, , p.7. Cat & Classif Qly 22(2), 71-87.
Comaromi J.P. 1981, Book Numbers: A historical Study and Practical Guide to their Use, Libraries Unlimited, Littleton, CO, p. 118.
Cutter C.A.’s .1896. alphabetic Order Table Consonants Except S. and Vowels and S. Altered and Fitted with Three-Figures, by Kate E. Sanborn, Library Bureau, Boston, , 18pp of Tables, 13×15 cm.
Cutter C.A.’s .1969. Two Figure Author Table, Swanson-Swift Revision 1969, H.R.
Huntting Co., Chicopee, MA, , 29 pp, 39×29 cm.
Cutter C.A.’s 1892. Alphabetic Order Table. Alternatives for the Vowels and S. Altered and Fitted with Three Figures, by Kate E. Sanborn, Library Bureau, Boston,.4pp of Tables, 33×17 cm.
Cutter C.A.’s. .1895. alphabetic Order Tables-Consonants Except S. Altered and Fitted with Three-Figures, by Kate E. Sanborn, Library Bureau, Boston, 14pp of Tables, 33×28 cm.
Cutter C.A.’s. 1969. Three Figure Author Table, Swanson-Swift Revision 1969, H.R.
Huntting Co., Chicopee, MA, 29 pp, 39×29 cm.
Cutter, William Parker. Charles Ammi Cutter. Chicago: ALA, 1931.
Cutter-Sanborn. 1964. Three Figure Author Table, Huntting Co., Chicopee, MA (Distributors), 8 pp, 35 cm.
Cutter-Sanborn.1969. Three Figure Author Table, Swanson-Swift Revision 1969, H.R.
Huntting Co., Chicopee, MA, 33 pp, 39×22 cm.
Denton William .Feb 2003, “Book Numbers” .
Immroth, John Phillip “Cutter, Charles Ammi (1837-1903)” In Encyclopedia of
Laws A.C. 1917, Author Notation in the Library of Congress, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., p. 18.Lehnus D.J. 1980., Book Numbers: History, Principles, and Application, American Library Association, Chicago, , pp. 58-66.
Libr. J., 4, 38-47 (February 1879).
library and information science/ ed. by Allen Kent, et al. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1971, pp. 380-387.
Maltby, Arthur. Sayers manual of classification for librarians, 5th ed. London: Andre Deutsch, 1975, pp. 123-125.
Miksa, Francis L. “Cutter, Charles Ammi (1837-1903)” In ALA world encyclopedia of library and information services ed. by R. Wedgeworth, 2nd ed. Chicago: ALA, 1986, pp.238-240.
O’Neill Edward T. 1996, et al, “Four-Figure Cutter Tables”
O’Neill Edward T. 1996., et al, “Four-Figure Cutter Tables” , p. 4.
Olin C. R. May 1893, “An Order Table for Collective Biography,” Libr. J., 18, 144 .
Satija M. P. 1987, “History of Book Numbers,” Int. Classif., 14(2), Sec 6. This paper also explains some Indian cuttering procedures; and catalogues some unauthorized editions of Cutter-Sanborn tables published in India.
Savic Dobrica, .1996. “Cutt-x: An Expert System for Automatic assignment of cutter numbers”,

Web Resources

http://digitalarchive.oclc.org/da/ViewObjectMain.jsp?objid=0000003355&frame=true.
htttp://www.miskatonic.org/library/book- numbers.html.
http://www.bostonatheneum.org/general/html.
http://ub.uibk.ac.at/fbg/author/author5.htm

Learn More:

Module LIS/KOP – C/13(1): Call, Book and Collection Number: Use of Cutter Author Tables

Do you know

Late 19th century is the age of the origin of modern librarianship.
C. A. Cutter is known as the Prince of Librarianship though Melvil Dewey is called the Father of the Profession.

Points to remember

Role of book numbers in shelf arrangement of documents in a library is indispensable.
In the modern relative classification systems the book numbers are a satellite of the class number.
The function of a book number starts where that of class number ends.
They reach where class number cannot.
Book numbers are needed only in relative classification systems. They were not needed in fixed location systems of the pre-Deweyan era.
There are various systems of book numbers but author alphabetical systems as proposed by C A Cutter are still most popular.
Cutter numbers are synonymous with author numbers.