Generating Cutter numbers

[Terry Reedy]

"Gerard Flanagan" <grflanagan at yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message 
news:1148146441.412605.163750 at j55g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> I'm cataloging a small library and want to generate a unique id (called
> a 'call number') for each book.  This id is composed of:
>
> * Dewey 3-digit Subject Classification Number
> * Dewey Decimal  (always 0 for the minute)
> * Cutter Number
> * Copy number  (multiple copies or volumes)
>
> (That Celestial Emporium again...)
>
> I haven't researched it much but it seems the Cutter number is used to
> distinguish between authors with the same name, and between different
> books written by the same author - so you need last name, first name
> and title.  But it may be as much art as science.

I seems you are mixing pieces of two cataloging systems.  The link you gave 
was for creating Cutter numbers to represent subtopics of Library of 
Congress classes.  For instance, 'algorithms' is .A43.