For UCL's purposes, cuttering is a means of providing a filing element at the end of a classmark to enable filing by an author's name, a work's title, or some other means. UCL uses a variety of schemes, many of them local and developed at different times for different purposes. The guidelines below attempt to clarify practice.

Library of Congress Classification Cutters

General Principles

While UCL aims to follow standard practice and usage as far as possible in order to facilitate interoperability and standardisation, the ideals of uniqueness of call numbers and strict alphabetical order are not deemed to be a priority.

General Procedure

1. Use a cutter provided in a record, found on LC’s catalogue in a record for that book, or another library’s record for the book.
2. Use a cutter for the same author in a similar part of the scheme if one is found while researching a classmark.
3. Construct a cutter using the LC cuttering table or a utility such as the Cataloging Calculator. See specific procedure.

Procedure for Assigning a Cutter

An LCC cutter is made up of the initial letter of the author or title followed by one or more digits, e.g. J66 for Jones. The numbers are calculated using the following table.

Use the following table and instructions to construct a cutter for a book following step 3 of the General Procedure. This table is adapted and simplified from one used by the Moore Library at Cambridge University, itself based on G060 (now G063) of the Subject Cataloguing Manual (SCM). The Cambridge version fills in gaps missing from the standard Library of Congress version and so can be more reliably calculated. You can also use the UCL LCC Cutter Calculator, which should produce the same result.

UCL LCC Cutter table

(1)         After initial vowels

              for the second letter:                    a-c         d-h        i-m        n            o-q              r             s-t          u-z

              use number:                                   2            3            4            5            6              7            8            9

(2)         After initial letter S

              for the second letter:                    a-c         ch          d-g         h-l          m-p              q-t         u-v         w-z

              use number:                                   2            3            4            5            6              7            8            9

(3)         After initial letters Qu

              for the second letter:                     a            e            i             o            r              t             y

              use number:                                   3            4            5            6            7              8            9

(3.5)      After initial letter Q not followed by u

             for the second letter:                    a-z

             use number:                                  2

(4)         After other initial consonants

              for the second letter:                    a-d        e-h        i-l           m-o       p-s              t-v          w-z

              use number:                                   3            4            5            6            7              8            9

(5)         For expansion

              for the letter:                                 a-d        e-h        i-l           m-o       p-s              t-v          w-z

              use number:                                   3            4            5            6            7              8            9

Choice of entry from which the cutter is constructed

The final cutter is created from:

1. The surname of the first-mentioned personal author (i.e. if there is a 100 field, use the information it contains), or failing that
2. The name of the first-mentioned corporate body or conference responsible for the work (i.e. use the information given in any 110 or 111 field), or failing that
3. The title of the work (i.e. there’s a 245 with first indicator 0). Ignore articles ("A", "An", "The", and equivalents in other languages).

Number of digits in cutter

For personal, corporate, or conference names, the default number of digits is two, so the name Smith would be cuttered as .S65 unless any other factor came into play.  The exception to this is names that are only two letters long, in which case there can only be one digit to the cutter, so Wu would be cuttered as .W8. When dealing with authors who have multiple or hyphenated surnames, ignore all spaces and punctuation, so that, e.g. ‘La Vallee Poussin, Charles Jean de’ would be cuttered as .L38.

Names or Titles Beginning with a Number

If the name or title starts with a number, start the cutter with A1 regardless of the second letter and expand in the normal way. Ignore any subsequent numbers.

Examples

TBD

Garside Cutters

General Principles

Generally, Garside cutters are only letters and are the first three letters of the author’s name, editor’s name, or title. There are also many specific uses of cutters to classify materials instead of or in addition to the normal filing cutter as well as classmarks where there is no cutter; check the schedules for instances of this. Follow previous usage if necessary to promote colocation of editions, etc. Break conventions, if considered necessary, to distinguish between too many books at the same place. 

Procedure for Assigning a Cutter

Author main entry. First three letters of first author’s family name. 

Edited work. First three letters of first editor’s family name. 

No obvious author or editor. First three letters of title. 

Some specific cases: 

Mac and Mc names. Use the form of name used in the heading, so MacDonald would be MAC, and McDonald would be MCD. Do not standardise or add additional letters. 

Two letter names. Use the two letter name as is, e.g. Ng would be NG. 

Literary works by an author where the stem of the classmark is the number for that author's works, do not take a cutter.  e.g. At ENGLISH Q 25 works by Bernard Shaw will not take a cutter, but critical works about Shaw’s writings would take the cutter of the author/editor. 

DRAFT: SSEES Classification Cutters

General Principles

Generally, SSEES cutters are only letters and are the first three letters of the author’s name or title (never an editor's name). Cutters can also be used to bring out subjects when a book is about a particular person; this is then followed by a second cutter for the author or title.

Procedure for Assigning a Cutter

Author main entry. First three letters of first author’s family name. 

Edited work or no obvious author. First three letters of title, ignoring initial articles.

Some specific cases: 

Mac and Mc names. Use the form of name used in the heading, so MacDonald would be MAC, and McDonald would be MCD. Do not standardise or add additional letters. 

Two letter names. Use the two letter name as is, e.g. Ng would be NG. 

Works in any field about a particular person. Use a cutter for the the person who is the subject of the work followed by a second cutter for the author or title, e.g. for a work about Dostoevsky by Smith, use DOS SMI.