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tr03 5

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TR03-1999

Guidelines for Alphabetical Arrangement of


Letters and Sorting of Numerals and
Other Symbols

1. Scope
This technical report provides rules for the alphanumeric arrangement of headings
consisting of letters, numerals, other symbols, or any combination of such characters in
ordered lists such as bibliographies, catalogs, indexes, directories, dictionaries, invento-
ries, etc.

Using the order of character sets designed for computer sorting does not necessarily
produce a sort sequence that is acceptable for bibliographies, indexes, or library cata-
logs, because some computer sorting codes, for example, the American Standard Code
for Information Interchange (7-bit ASCII), sort uppercase and lowercase letters sepa-
rately and sort punctuation marks and symbols in various places between numerals and
letters.

Examples in this technical report are chosen to illustrate the application of its rules;
they do not necessarily conform to existing cataloging or indexing rules. Guidelines for
the compilation of indexes may be found in the NISO TR02, Guidelines for Indexes and
Related Information Retrieval Devices.

This technical report is not applicable to the arrangement of headings written in non-
Roman scripts but it does apply to any romanizations of headings originally written in
such scripts. See also Appendix B.

2. Definitions
Boldface terms within definitions are defined in this section.

Abbreviation. A shortened or contracted form of one or more words, used to repre-


sent the whole.

Alphanumeric arrangement. An ordered display of headings according to their


constituent characters.

Character. The smallest possible unit of arrangement: a space, letter, numeral,


punctuation mark, or other symbol.

Cross-reference. A heading plus a link to one or more other headings.

Function word. A word that indicates the syntactic relation of nouns, verbs, and
adjectives in a sentence, clause, or phrase. Articles, conjunctions, and prepositions are
function words.

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TR03-1999

Heading. Any written, printed or otherwise visually displayed item, consisting of one
or more words, that is to be arranged among other such items in a known order.

Letter. A character used in writing to represent a speech sound and forming an


element of an alphabet.

Number. A countable quantity represented by numerals.

Numeral. A character used in writing or print to represent a number.

Punctuation mark. A character (other than a space) conventionally used to sepa-


rate words or to indicate their meaning.

Qualifier. A defining term used to distinguish among homographic headings or to


clarify the meaning of a heading.

Space. A blank character that separates words in a heading or term.

Subheading. A modifying heading, subordinated to another heading.

Symbol. A character representing something other than itself by association, resem-


blance, or convention.

Term. One or more words designating a concept.

Word. One or more contiguous characters (except a space), separated from the next
string of contiguous characters by a punctuation mark or by one or more spaces,
or terminated by the end of data.

3. Order of Characters
The basic order of characters should be in the following sequence:
spaces
symbols other than numerals, letters, and punctuation marks
numerals (0 through 9)
letters (A through Z)

An example of this sequence appears in Figure 1.

3.1 Spaces

A space precedes any other character in alphanumeric arrangement. Two or more


contiguous spaces should be treated as a single character and have the arrangement
value of a single space.

NOTE: A space in the sense of this rule is a blank generated by touching a space bar on
a keyboard or by leaving a blank between handwritten words. The blank space in the
left margin of a printed or written text is not to be considered as a space.

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