Initial Articles: Coordinating Cataloging Practices with User Searches

If you set the Characters removed from beginning of user-typed search WebPAC option to remove initial articles from title searches, you must take this functionality into account when cataloging and when training patrons to search by title. You can:

• Update article skip indicators. The SDA and Sierra Web interfaces differ with respect to automatically populating or updating the MARC 245 second indicator field and the SKIP bibliographic record fixed field.

SDA cataloging interface:

When you insert a title field into a bibliographic record using the SDA, Sierra detects the presence of the English language initial articles "a", "an", and "the" in the field. The system updates the related fields and indicators (included the SKIP fixed-length field) to ensure that the article is stripped from the title for sorting and indexing purposes. For example, if the title begins with "The ", the system supplies a SKIP value of '4'. In full MARC records, the system automatically updates the second indicator of the 245 field.

For t-tagged MARC 245 title fields storing titles with initial English language articles, Sierra automatically adjusts the SKIP value to match the MARC 245 second indicator field if you manually edit the second indicator field in the SDA. However, for such records, manual edits of the SKIP value do not affect the value of the second indicator.

The system does not automatically detect initial articles in languages other than English or in UNIMARC or Chinese MARC records (in either the SDA or Sierra Web). When you enter a non-English title, you must supply the appropriate SKIP value or set the second indicator in the 245 field appropriately.

Sierra Web cataloging interface:

The Sierra Web cataloging interface does not automatically supply or automatically adjust values for the MARC 245 second indicator or the SKIP field when you manually add or edit a t-tagged title field.

• Catalog to compensate for non-article uses of initial article characters. The system cannot determine when a word specified in the Characters removed from beginning of user-typed search WebPAC option is not being used as an initial article. For example, if "a" is treated as an article and a user searches for the title "A to Z", WebPAC searches for "to Z" and fails to return the correct title. To compensate, you can:
  • Make an additional title field entry in the bibliographic record (MARC tag 740, Innovative field tag u) with the first (non-filing) indicator set to 2, as if the first word (and space) is an article. The system indexes this additional field as "to Z". A search for "A to Z", read by the system as "to Z", would then return the appropriate record.
  • Though it is not recommended, you can set the second indicator in the 245 field to indicate that the "A " in the title A to Z is an article.
• Catalog to compensate for non-English articles. Issues encountered with non-article uses of initial article characters can also occur with non-English articles. For example, if you correctly set the second indicator to 3 in the 245 field for the title "Le Monde", the system does not index "le ". Thus, if "le " is not specified in the Characters removed from beginning of user-typed search option, a search for "Le Monde" fails. To compensate, you can:
  • Add the article "le " to the list of initial articles specified in the Characters removed from beginning of user-typed search option.
  • Make an added entry (MARC tag 740, Innovative tag u) for "Le Monde" with the first (non-filing) indicator set to 0.
• Instruct users in specific title-searching techniques. If you have not compensated for bypassing initial articles during cataloging, you must instruct users to do the following when they enter initial articles in search statements:
  • Double the initial letter on searches of this type. If the user enters the search string "A A to Z", the system removes the first "A" and searches for "A to Z".
  • Omit initial articles from searches for non-English titles. For example, the user must search for "Monde", rather than "Le Monde".