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9.42 Alphabetical arrangement
Headings may be alphabetized letter by letter or word by word:
| letter by letter | word by word |
|---|---|
| Laurence, Margaret | Laurence, Margaret |
| Leacock, Stephen | Le Jeune, Père |
| Leechman, Douglas | Le Pan, Douglas |
| Le Jeune, Père | Leacock, Stephen |
| Le Pan, Douglas | Leechman, Douglas |
In the word-by-word listing, the position of the two-word names is determined by the first word; the second part of the surname comes into play in determining which of the two names is listed first. In the letter-by-letter arrangement, the number of words in the heading is irrelevant.
Use the letter-by-letter format for an index of acronyms, letters and symbols with technical meanings, as in a scientific work.
List organizations by their acronyms or abbreviations if they are usually referred to in that way. The short form should be alphabetized letter by letter and followed immediately by the full title in parentheses or a cross-reference to that title.
A word-by-word arrangement is often used in a proper noun listing of geographical names:
- North Umpqua
- North Valley Stream
- North Vancouver
- North Vernon
- North Versailles
- Northumberland Strait
- Northumbria
- Northvale
- Northville
In a letter-by-letter listing, the entries with the word North would not have been grouped together.
The word-by-word listing provides for a clear grouping of related headings, e.g. book, book jacket, book label and book list, which would otherwise be separated by a heading such as bookkeeping. Its disadvantage is that a related term may have to be separated from the grouping because it is one word, hyphenated or unhyphenated. For example, words such as booklet and bookmark might well be separated from the above group, even though they belong to the same subject field. This shows the advantage of a letter-by-letter listing: a compound occupies the same position, whether it is unhyphenated, hyphenated or written as two words.
Note that, whichever arrangement is adopted, prepositions at the beginning of a subentry or sub-subentry must be disregarded for alphabetization purposes.
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