CSAN: Cutter-Sanborn Call Number Generator

csan generates a Cutter-Sanborn call number, given a last name and an optional first name. It can be used as a CLI tool or as a Python library.

The Cutter-Sanborn call number, commonly called "Cutter number", is an alphanumeric code that forms part of the call number in library classification systems in order to arrange books alphabetically by author. It consists of the first letter of the author's last name followed by three-digit number derived from a predefined table. This system was originally developed by Charles Cutter, and revised by Kate Sanborn and Swanson-Swift.

Installation

You can install this tool using uv or pip:

uv tool install csan

pip install csan

CLI Usage

usage: csan [-h] [-f FIRST_NAME] -l LAST_NAME [-t TITLE] [-v]

Cutter-Sanborn identifier generator.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -f, --first-name FIRST_NAME
  -l, --last-name LAST_NAME
  -t, --title TITLE
  -v, --verbose

For instance:

Examples

csan -f John -l Doe -> D649
csan -f John -l Doe -t "My Book" -> D649m
csan -f First -l Last -v -> L349, with log output to the console
csan -f Jorge -l "De la Cruz" -> D332

The following table shows expected Cutter call numbers for their respective names, using CLI:

First Name	Last Name	Cutter Call Number
Jane	Austen	A933
Eric	Blair	B635
Agatha	Christie	C555
Samuel	Clemens	C625
Jorge	De la Cruz	D332
Charles	Dickens	D548
Emily	Dickinson	D553
Fyodor	Dostoyevsky	D724
Stephen	King	K52
VERA	LVX	L979
Herman	Melville	M531
George	Orwell	O79
William	Shakespeare	S527
Lord	Sith	S622
Ivan	Smith	S649
William	Smith	S664
Leo	Tolstoy	T654
Mark	Twain	T969
Virginia	Woolf	W913
Emile	Zola	Z86

Library Usage

Add package to virtual environment:

uv add csan

There are two relevant functions in csan package:

csan.cutter.cutter_number: return the integer part of the Cutter call number
csan.cutter.cutter_call_number: return the Cutter call number

Also, the entire Cutter-Sanborn table can be retrieved as a Python dict:

csan.table.CUTTER_TABLE

Example

from csan.cutter import cutter_call_number, cutter_number
from csan.table import CUTTER_TABLE


def main():
    print(CUTTER_TABLE)

    cutter_num = cutter_number("First", "Last")
    cutter_call_num = cutter_call_number("Last", cutter_num)

    print(cutter_num)
    print(cutter_call_num)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

License

This project is released under the Apache-2.0 license.

Metadata

Release files for csan 0.4.2

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for csan 0.4.2
File	Size	Uploaded
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Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for csan 0.4.2
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
csan-0.4.2-py3-none-any.whl 69.6 kB Dec 8, 2025	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 138.8 kB

Release files / csan-0.4.2.tar.gz

Download URL	csan-0.4.2.tar.gz
Size	69.2 kB
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Uploaded via	`uv/0.9.16 {"installer":{"name":"uv","version":"0.9.16","subcommand":["publish"]},"python":null,"implementation":{"name":null,"version":null},"distro":{"name":"Ubuntu","version":"24.04","id":"noble","libc":null},"system":{"name":null,"release":null},"cpu":null,"openssl_version":null,"setuptools_version":null,"rustc_version":null,"ci":true}`

Release files / csan-0.4.2-py3-none-any.whl

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Size	69.6 kB
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Upload date	Dec 8, 2025
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Uploaded via	`uv/0.9.16 {"installer":{"name":"uv","version":"0.9.16","subcommand":["publish"]},"python":null,"implementation":{"name":null,"version":null},"distro":{"name":"Ubuntu","version":"24.04","id":"noble","libc":null},"system":{"name":null,"release":null},"cpu":null,"openssl_version":null,"setuptools_version":null,"rustc_version":null,"ci":true}`