Charles Cutter (1837-1903) was a librarian in Massachusetts in the USA and his Rules for a Dictionary Catalog and his Expansive Classification laid the basis for how English language libraries are organized.
One of his inventions was the Cutter Table. It allows one to arrange names or titles in an alphanumeric sequence forever.
It's not hard to arrange things alphabetically with a finite set. But if you are constantly receiving new material, and don't want to keep changing the assigned numbers, you need something flexible.
Cutter Table from the US Library of Congress.
For fun, you can visit Kyle Banerjee's Cataloging Calculator, which can make Cutters for you.
Librarians follow the basic table and then check against what their library owns to make to make sure the numbers are not duplicate.
If a certain areas or disciplines are "crowded", one must cutter further to be able to inter-file correctly.
| Classification number | Main entry - Author's name or book title (if there is no author) |
| E184.C5 C45 1991 | Chen, Huaidong |
| E184.C5 C466 2002 | Chen, Shehong |
| E184.C5 C468 1995 | Chen, Yanni. (Chen Yanni : Niuyue yi shi) |
| E184.C5 C4685 1997 | Chen, Yanni. (Zao yu Meiguo, Chen Yanni cai fang.) |
| E184.C5 C473 1998 | Chin, Frank |
| TK | Electrical Engineering |
| 5103.2 | Telecommunications (TK5101-> TK6720) |
| .I54 | Title of Journal (International journal of wireless information networks) |
Why does this call number lack a publication year?
When you see a classification number in the Library Catalog that has no publication year, it is most likely a periodical.
