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- Determine the creator of your collection. The creator is the main entry, or authorized access point, for the collection and is used in the MARC 100 field.
- Take the first few letters of the last name and turn to the section of the table that corresponds to those letters. Sometimes you will use more than the first three letters.
- Use the bold face number shown next to the portion of the name. The cutter number is composed of the first letter of the last name and the three or four numbers listed in the book. Use this pattern:
Small As: A/[first letter of last name] [number]
Small Bs: B/[first letter of organization] [number] - Look in the shelf list drawer to see if there are any other collections with the same number. If there are not, you are done.
- If you find out that your creator already has a Small A collection, you can simply add a letter to the end of the number to distinguish the next collection. See Elizabeth Blackwell example below.
- If your number is already assigned to a different name, you have a couple of options. However, the most best option is to try to “fit” the number before or after the number that has already been claimed.
Example 1: Bearce, Nellie Bradford, 1876-1972: A/B3675
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