Cataloging: “A to Z” Titles (Alma)
Purpose: To provide a workaround to all titles that have “A to Z” at the beginning of the title to be searched in URSUS.
If a title begins with “A to Z” (as opposed to “The A to Z” or “An A to Z,” etc.), users cannot find the record in URSUS by title search. This is because system rules override MARC field 245 coding and treat “A” as a leading article. (Such items can be found by adding an initial article to the search string (even though it doesn’t appear in the record), but this is not a user-friendly solution.) We have come up with a cataloging workaround to restore visibility to these titles by copying the 245 $a contents to a 246 field (the system rule does not apply to 246). The procedure also ensures consistent, successful searches for both “A to Z” and “A-Z” forms of the phrase.
Procedure:
- When the title begins with “A to Z…” (including “The A to Z…” and “An A to Z…”), add the following fields:
246 3_ $a A to Z […etc.]
246 13 $a A-Z […etc.]
- When the title begins with “A-Z…” (including “The A-Z…” and “An A-Z…”), add the following field:
246 13 $a A to Z […etc.]