Tuesday, August 09, 2005

What's your Cutter Number, baby?

Librarians & library staff may be cool, but I don't know any cool pickup lines to have come from us. This post from the LISNews Librarian shows why (via Filipino Librarian).

My favourite is, "So what's your Cutter Number, baby?"

BTW, chances are you've encountered a Cutter Number before. The next time you borrow a book from the NLB public library, look at the Call Number label at the spine of the book. The Cutter isn't a "number" per se. In simple terms, it's the first 3-letters of the author's surname (in some cases, the book title) to identify fiction works, and to add further identification from other Dewey Decimal numbers.

For instance, for fiction titles:
. Tom Clancy's books - Call No. = CLA
. John Grisham's - Call No. = GRI
. "Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien = TOL

Aah, librarians like to complicate things... ... fictional works like Graphic Novels are classified under DDC "741" (because they are classified as "Art") and a Cutter Number added to differentiate from all the "741s".

Like "Orbiter" (a graphic novel) - Call No. 741.5973 ORB (the ORB follows the title, 'cos in this case we don't take the comic artist as author).

Hmm... trust a (rambling) librarian to overload you with too much information. :)


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5 comments:

  1. first you use a jamming session to educate listeners about the songs, and then you use a pickup line (!) to tell your readers about cutter numbers! that's waaaay cool =)

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  2. Funny conversation...my cutter is 921 HUG. If I were single I'd add "and right now I'm one short!"

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  3. Anonymous6:23 am

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  4. thanks for the added info on libraries! cheers!

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