Author-numbers, or book-marks
The books in a given group or class should stand on the shelves in
the alphabetical order of their authors' names, though this is not
necessary in a small library. This result is best secured by adding to
the class-mark of every book another mark, called an author-number or
book-number or book-mark, made up of the first letter of the author's
name and certain figures. Books bearing these author-numbers,
if arranged first alphabetically by the letters, and then in the
numerical order of the numbers following the letters, will always
stand in the alphabetical order of the authors' names. Different books
by the same author are distinguished from one another by adding other
figures to the author-number, or by adding to the author-numbers the
first letter of the title of each book.
These book-marks cannot be chosen arbitrarily. They should be taken
from the printed set of them worked out by Mr Cutter, and called the
Cutter author-tables. (See Library Bureau catalog.)
In a very small library the books in a given class can be
distinguished one from another by writing after the class-number of
each book the number of that book in its class. If the class-mark of
religion, for example, is 20, the books successively placed in that
class will bear the numbers 20.1, 20.2, 20.3, etc.
Fiction should have author-numbers only. The absence of a class-number
will sufficiently distinguish it from other classes.