Filing and Arrangement Rules

Name changed by AACR2. Even if the last name is changed by AACR2, you should continue to use the author Cutter to the preAACR2 form.

Filing rules. When shelflisting, keep in mind some significant filing rules that affect alphabetic sequence of author Cutters:

Treat a prefix that is part of a name or place as a separate word unless it is joined to the rest of the name directly or by an apostrophe without a space. If an initial article is included in the established form of a personal name, it counts in filing: El-Ayoutty, Yassin files under E, not A. (If El-Ayoutty is a single Cutter author where the first part of the class number represents the first letter of the name, the author Cutter would begin with L.)

"What you see is what you file." Do not ignore the "u" in names beginning with Qu  when shelflisting author Cutters [the rules are different when shelflisting book numbers]. Do not file names beginning with Mc as Mac. Do not translate umlauts to e (i.e. do not file ü as ue, file as "u;"  do not file ö as oe, file as "o"). File abbreviations as written, e.g. St. files as ST not Saint.

File single surnames before compound surnames; file given names before surnames. Hyphenated compound surnames file as separate words.

Here is an example of correct filing sequence involving prefixes from the LC Shelflisting Manual:

Darby, Joseph R.
D'Arcy, Paula, 1947-
De, S. C
De La Cruz, Jessie Lopez, 1919-
De Lange, Elaine
DeAndrea, William L.
D'Ebneth, Maria Scholten de
Deformation of solids
Del Balzo, Giulio
Delaurier, William J.

"What you see is what you file" (also from the LC Shelflisting Manual):

Mabney, William
MacDonald, Joan E., 1916-
Marshall, Catherine, 1914-
McGrath, Suzanne

SML cataloging did not take changes in filing rules into account in some of its shelflisting practices. Follow the current rules for new authors; ignore numbers established under the old rules when determining the author arrangement for new authors.