csan 0.3.0

CLI tool that generates a Cutter-Sanborn identifier, given a first and a last name.

CSAN: Cutter-Sanborn Number Generator

csan is a CLI tool that generates a Cutter-Sanborn identifier, given a first and a last name.

The Cutter-Sanborn identifier, 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.

Installation

You can install this tool using uv or pip:

uv tool install csan

pip install csan

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:

• 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

Examples

The following cutter numbers are expected, for their respective names. This is achieved with cutter_number function from csan.cutter. When run via CLI, the output is the cutter identifier (cutter_identifier function), which also includes the cutter number.

First Name	Last Name	Cutter Number
Charles	Dickens	548
Jane	Austen	933
Mark	Twain	969
Samuel	Clemens	625
George	Orwell	79
Eric	Blair	635
Virginia	Woolf	913
Leo	Tolstoy	654
Fyodor	Dostoyevsky	724
Herman	Melville	531
Emily	Dickinson	553
William	Shakespeare	527
Agatha	Christie	555
Stephen	King	52
Jorge	De la Cruz	332
Ivan	Smith	649
William	Smith	664
Emile	Zola	86
VERA	LVX	979
Lord	Sith	622