On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 10:36 AM, Michael Doran <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> If you're retrieving the data from your ILS and the ILS already has a normalized call number field, you would want to retrieve that in addition to your display call number.  That would allow for sorting by call number rather than by a database ID and would allow for easier updates of the data (i.e. you wouldn't have to re-generate the entire database ID index).  If your ILS doesn't have normalized call numbers, you might want to normalize them yourself as part of the data load process.


It looks like Michael's already got some beta code out there to
normalize LC call numbers ;-)

http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/sortlc/sortLC.pl

In general, I think normalizing LC will be tricky. (Actually,
normalizing *any* schema will, I think, be tricky.) Also, combining
call numbers from different schemas (LC and SUDOC in this example) may
provide some interesting challenges at the edges.

The other (harder-core) route you might go down would be to create a
custom datatype and index in your database system of choice. This may
actually be easier than transforming call numbers into a
natively-indexable string (all you should need is a sort function
then, really) -- but extending your database is not for the faint of
heart.

Cheers,
-Nate