RE: Initial articles in foreign languages

["Wynn, Stephen" <swynn at truman dot edu>]

> The search engine can only strip one leading article per title.  This
> gives rise to a work-around for  problem titles (like those beginning
with
> "A-Z", "Los angeles", etc.) where the library inputs an additional 246
30
> with a title like "An An A-Z directory", Los los angeles, An an die
Romer,
> etc.  Or you could define a special leading article like /__
(slash-space-
> space)in the OPAC options and place that at the beginning of these
added
> entries -- as long as you are reasonably confident that combination of
> characters won't occur in nature.

Actually, these examples wouldn't be very helpful if your OPAC is
stripping "articles" from a user's search.  When your user types a
search for "A-Z directory, it's going to normalize to "Z directory," so
that's what you'd want in the additional 246.  Or you could just add an
extra 246 for "A-Z directory": III's inscrutable policy of stripping
"articles" from fields where initial articles don't exist means that the
field "246 3^ A-Z directory" indexes as "Z directory."

Stephen Wynn
swynn at truman dot edu
Cataloger
Truman State University
Kirksville, MO