Rules for Indexing Punctuation
Omit accent marks and diacritics such as ¨ (umlaut) and ¸ (cedilla). Special characters should be replaced by a Romanized form of the character, such as u for hooked u and ss for ß (eszett).
| Puncutation | Rule |
| " (quote mark) | Convert to a blank |
| @ (commercial at) | Convert to a blank |
| ' (apostrophe) | Indexed both as: — delete and collapse — convert to a blank |
| ? (question mark) | Convert to a blank |
| . (period) | Convert to a blank, except when the first period in a class number search. |
| / (slash) | Convert to a blank except in Dewey call number search where it is deleted and collapsed. |
| , (comma) | Convert to a blank |
| - (hyphen) | Convert to a blank |
| ; (semicolon) | |
| & (ampersand) | Retain and index |
| : (colon) | Convert to a blank |
| \ (backslash) | Convert to a blank |
| () (parentheses) | Delete and collapse |
| © (copyright sign) | Delete and collapse |
| <> (greater/less than signs) | Convert to a blank |
| ° (degree sign) | Convert to a blank |
| {} (curly brackets) | Convert to a blank |
| € (Euro) | Convert to a blank |
| [] (square brackets) | Delete and collapse, retaining the data within except for [sic] and [i.e. any data following] |
| Flat (musical) | Convert to a blank |
| = (equal sign) | Convert to a blank |
| ¡ (inverted exclamation point) | Convert to a blank |
| ! (exclamation point) | Convert to a blank |
| ¿ (inverted question mark) | Convert to a blank |
| # (number sign) | Delete and collapse |
| Phonograph copyright | Delete and collapse |
| $ (dollar sign) | Convert to a blank |
| # (sharp — musical) | Convert to a blank |
| % (percent sign) | Convert to a blank |
| Space | Convert multiple spaces to a single space |
| * (asterisk) | Convert to a blank |
| ± (plus/minus sign) | Convert to a blank |
| + (plus sign) | Convert to a blank |
| _ (underscore) | Convert to a blank |
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