School of Library and Information Science
21:122 Organization of Information Resources I
Fall, 1999
Gregory Cotton, instructor

• Dewey numbers, though they can be very subject specific, are not book specific. A library can have several books, all sharing the same class number. To make a class number book specific, libraries have developed various strategies. Some libraries add some or all of the author's last name (or, more properly, the first word of the main entry) to the classification number. Others, when necessary, add the author's last name and first initial. Naturally, neither of these options will produce a unique call number--one author can write several books on the same topic, especially in an academic situation. To solve this problem, our friend Charles Ammi Cutter races to the rescue!
  
  
• There are several incarnations of Cutter tables around, and there are differences other than cosmetic. One of the more common is the Cutter-Sanborn 3 Figure Table, reformatted in 1969 by Swanson and Swift.
  
  Here's a portion of Cutter's Two-Figure Author Table:

Here's a sample from Cutter's Three-Figure Table:

Here's a sample from The Cutter-Sanborn Three Figure Table, reformatted by Swanson and Swift:

• Cutter numbers:
  
  
  1. Are always pragmatic. The "answer" you get from a Cutter table is just a starting point. You must use your library's shelf list to determine the final answer.
     
     
  2. Are always decimal numbers. The Cutter number "D557" comes between D55 and D56. Imagine that there is an invisible decimal point between the D and the 5 in the above examples. Although Cutter numbers are never printed using a terminal zero, it is sometimes helpful to think of a Cutter as ending in a zero. If you think of the above examples as D557, D550, and D560, it's easy to arrange them correctly.
     
     
  3. Always alphabetize.
     
     
• Use of Cutter tables
  
  
  1. Cutter numbers are used to uniquely identify each work and also to arrange the works within a given class number in alphabetic order by main entry.
     
     
  2. Find the stem of letters that match the name in the 1XX field or the first significant word(s) from a title.
     
     
  3. Use the letters in bold face type and the associated digits. Using the Cutter-Sanborn example above, if the name you are working with was Dickens, David, the Cutter number would be D556.
     
     
  4. If there is no exact fit, use the first of the two closest numbers. Again using the Cutter-Sanborn example, if the name is question was Dickens, Betty, the Cutter would be D554.
     
     
  5. Remember that Cutter numbers are decimals, so when necessary you can add digits as required for interpolation (i.e., fitting one number in between two others). In the Cutter-Sanborn example, if D555 had already been used for Dickens, Charles, and D556 had been used for Dickens, David, you could use D5555 for Dickens, Connie. Use of a 5 or 6 when interpolating is a good idea--gives you plenty of room on either side in case Dickens, Cuthbert shows up.
     
     
  6. Biographies of individuals are Cuttered by the name of the subject of the biography--this will alphabetize that class number by the people of interest. Cuttering by the author of a biography would obviously be of little use. Add a workmark (see below) for the biographer.
     
     
• Workmarks. Even Cutter numbers often won't make the call number unique (for example, a single author who wrote extensively in a given field)--we thus add work marks to the Cutter number.
  
  
  1. Refer to the sheets in the labpack.
     
     
  2. The workmark is most often the 1st letter of the first significant word in the title added to the Cutter number.
     
     
  3. For autobiographies, use a workmark of "a" or "A"
     
     
• Literature
  
  
  1. Literary works often require that more letters are added to workmarks to make a unique call number
     
     
  2. Biography/criticism of literary authors
     
     
     1. Add a "z" or "Z" to the Cutter number for the subject (i.e., the author being discussed in the work), followed by the first letter of the authors of the bio/criticism's last name.
        
        
     2. The result will be to put all bio/criticism of an author after the works by that author.
        
        
  3. Works about another work (i.e., literary criticism of a single work of literature
     
     
     1. Cutter for the author of the original, add a workmark for the title of the work being criticised (based, if necessary on the uniform title), then add "z" or "Z" and then add a second workmark for the critic.
        
        
     2. This will in effect put all original works first, followed by works about that work, alphabetized by the critic.
        
        
  4. Translations of literary works
     
     
     1. Literature is classed by the language of the original, meaning that translations of a work are classed with the original
        
        
     2. Cutter a translation for the original author, workmark for original title (i.e., the title in the original language, which will probably be the uniform title), followed by a capital letter for the language of the translation, followed by a workmark for the translator.
        
        
     3. This will in effect yield all editions of the original title, followed by translations arranged alphabetically by language and subarranged by translator, all followed by criticism of that title, arranged by critic.
        
        
  5. Catalogers often add the year to the call number, especially for editions other than first.
     
     
  6. In addition to the standard workmark A for autobiography, S is often used as a standword workmark for selected works or selections of works, L is used for letters (followed, where appropriate, by a second workmark for the correspondent, and W is used for the author's collected works.
     
     
• Remember these things about Cuttering:
  
  
  1. Cuttering is a means of alphabetizing the shelves
     
     
  2. Cuttering can help construct a unique identifier or call number for each work.
     
     
  3. Cuttering is always pragmatic--one must Cutter with a specific collection, and make the numbers fit that collection. There are lots of local, non-standard practices involved here (really, there aren't many standard practices at all), and of course, like everything else, you're Cuttering on top of a big pile of old stuff--those previous librarians may not have used the tables you're using, so make what you're doing fit what's already there, not the other way around.