Comment 3 for bug 1150939

>What happens if you put the prefix for the call number into the call number's "Prefix" column, instead of prepending it directly to the call number label?

Tried it... the prefix goes out of the equation entirely, and the sortkey is based solely on what is left. So the call number sorting intermingles everything together in one big soup, going strictly by the dewey numeric. Somewhat counter to the point of prefixes to begin with.

>I think the Dewey normalizer is expecting to normalize Dewey call numbers; having strings dumped in front of the Dewey call number makes it not be a Dewey call number.

Agreed, that is what it is doing. And that is true. But I've yet to see a public library stick to pure unadulterated Dewey. The idea of "prefixes" being a separate field is also a bit new, so existing collections are full of Dewey call numbers with strings dumped in front of them. Converting those collections to using separate prefixes appears non-trivial.

Most ILS seem to normalize and sort deweys just fine, whether prefixes are involved or not. They handle the non-ideal just as well as the ideal.