.. to ask whether Le Carre is 'L' or 'C' and du Maurier is 'D' or 'M' and...

[5Foot5]

The 5foot family have just started having a very much needed sort out of all our books. A new book case for DDs room was purchased at the weekend and another is on order for us next weekend. I reckon that will take us up to 6 and 1/2 book cases in total.

DD can sort out her own books but I made a start on classifying ours. Some clearly go in categories - e.g. cookery, travel, history. However that still leaves several hundred just loosely classified as novels ( I am making no distinction between classics and others Homer could end up on the same shelf as Howatch). Up to now they have been stuck in any old way as we haven't sorted them out for years and years and it can be very difficult and frustrating to find a particular book. I want to have them arranged by alphabetical order of author because it should be easier to find stuff like that.

So I started creating piles of books in the spare room grouped by author's surname, but, as the thread title suggests, I really am not sure what to do about surnames with a prefix. I find I assume that all McSomethings go in 'M' but at the same time I felt O'Brien was a 'B'.

So are there any librarians on here who can tell me what the rule is on prefixes and what counts as a prefix?

I'm not an indexer but am always right about these sorts of things

'Mc' and 'O' are indexed under 'M' and 'O', def.

But le Carre and du Maurier I would put under 'C' and 'M' as the 'le' and 'du' are lower case

But actually what's more important is what you would instinctively go with, so that you always find them so I guess O'Brien could go under 'B' but just don't tell me about it.

Well, I am a librarian and in our library, Du Maurier would go under Du. McSomething would go under M and O'Brien would go under O.

We use the Dewey Decimal system - so Du Maurier would be number of the book plus the letters DUM (first three letters of the surname).

Do them anyway that you like. At home all my fiction is together in a big old lump :)

O'Brien under O
McAnything under M
du and le - tricky and I say that as someone who is just taking a break from putting all my books back on their shelves in alphabetical order.
I have Danuta de Rhodes and she is under D.
Mmm rethinking whole set up

Agree with the Librarian. Du, definitely D and Le under L. Had a double barrelled maiden name and it got annoyed when people couldn't find me under C. That's because the L is first. Grrrrr!
Married someone with a far simpler and shorter name!

And this is why I love mumsnet

I work in a library and agree with whippetwoman, also where I work Mc is treated as Mac so surname McEwan would be before MacFarlan, don't know if this is the case with all libraries.

All my books are in alphabetical order and I agree with Whippetwoman's method!

What about Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Ga or Ma?

Just stuff them in any old how! Seriously, you should go out more!!

The on-trend way is to shelve books by colour of the spine...

HTH

I'd put them under whichever letter you think you would naturally go to first to find them when you wanted them. I can guarantee that whichever way around is the proper way, it would be the opposite way to the one I would think of to find them at first.

Or you could just have a look at where they are in the library or bookshop and copy that.

I just like my bookshelves to look pretty. Where's the pink girlie emoticon when you need one?

By the way, 5foot, loving that you have so many books in your house. My mum puts hers away in cupboards (she is a tidy freak) but I've always loved having them out on show. Only the intellectual ones, though. Wouldn't want people to think I enjoy reading Marian Keyes.

Du Maurier goes under D
Le Carre goes under L
Mc's go in the M's but before the just M's iykwim
O'Brien goes under O
For whoever asked about Gabriel Garcia Marquez he would go under M. The way double barrelled surnames work (at least where I work) is that if they are hyphenated they go under the first surname if they are not hyphenated they go under the second

For us Du Maurier under D as a French name but written in English. Books by Guy de Maupassant under M as written in French so follow French "rules". By same token Gabriel Garcia Marquez under G as originally written in Spanish, even if you read a translation. Local public library has same system.

Non Hyphenated double barrelled surnames... By last bit of last name only. McCall Smith goes under S.

Hyphenated double barrelled surnames go by the first bit.

Which doesn't explain why I found Conn Smith under C and McCall Smith Under S on Sunday. Grrrrrr.

I work in a library, our rules are:

If it's a name like Le Carre we treat it as one word, so Lecarre would be under L

If it's a double barrelled with a hyphen eg [can't think of an example] Thompson-Smith, then you go with the first of the two, so T

If it's a double surname with NO hyphen then you go with the second name so Alexander McCall Smith is under S.

Them's our rules anyway. I've been there 9 months and I still get confused by macs and mcs

I work in a secondhand bookshop. I always use whippetwoman's system, but someone has been putting the De and Le authors filed under the "bulk" of the surname, drives me NUTS. And as for fuzzpig's library - waaaaaahhhhhh - hope no-one starts this hyphen and non-hyphen business.

If I remember right from the cat and class module of my library course complexnumber is right and it depends on the nationality or language.

However, it's your system and as long as you apply it consistently you'll still be able to find your books which is the most important thing :)

The Mac/Mc thing used to really annoy me as I felt that putting them all together was like telling someone they're spelling their name wrong.

OMG and there I was hoping there were some simple rules! The double barrelled thing has really caught me off guard. Does that mean that all the George McDonald Fraser should be under 'F', 'cos we have all the Flashmans and they are currently sitting in my 'M' pile.

And while we are on the subject - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - is Conan an unusual middle name or the first part of a double barrelled surname? We have several Sherlock Holmes and I think DH has been favouring 'C' while I have got them in 'D'

GingeFringe They have been stuffed in any old how for some considerable time and it has become entirely unworkable. Hence the effort to bring a little order to things.

One local charity shop has bypassed this dilemma by organising books according to the colour of their spines. Try that method for a while, and after a month you'll know for sure where you want your du Mauriers to sit.

du Maurier are always in the M section of the library

OhdearNigel I guess you must visit a different library to the ones where whippetwoman and Elefant1 work!

I honestly thought there would be some consistent set of rules that everyone learned at library college but maybe not!

BreconBeBuggered (love the name BTW) Part of the reason we are in such a mess now is that somewhere near the turn of the century we tried to sort the books in to some scheme but DH resisted an alphabetised approach then as being too anal.

So we started with a scheme that had the books roughly classified by "brow" (high, medium, low.) Hence, classics and serious literature were on the top shelf, less serious novels somewhere in the middle and quite trashy stuff near the bottom. Unfortunately we could never properly agree on what went where and over time the lines became blurred, then totally ignored and then sheer volume of books overtook us and chaos reigned - to the point that I frequently find mysekf looking for a book I know I have but just can't find.

So - this time it is going to be done PROPERLY.