Why aren't titles that start with 'A,' 'An' and 'The' listed alphabetically in the catalog when I sort by title?
Last Updated: Aug 08, 2018 Views: 409

'A', 'An' and 'The' at the beginning of a titles are considered initial articles, grammatically speaking.  In the library catalog, these words are largely ignored for the purpose of indexing and alphabetizing.

When 'A', 'An' and 'The' are at the beginning of a title, the catalog ignores 'A', 'An' and 'The'. We alphabetize the same way wth the titles on the shelf.  So, when searching for books or movies either on the shelf or in the catalog skip the 'A' and 'The'. 

A good example is the movie The Breakfast Club. Find it on the shelf in the drama section under 'B' for Breakfast Club.

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