How does Zotero rank or sort titles of books

cl417

I am adding 10 volumes of the collected works of Edgar Allen Poe to my Zotero library. Each volume begins with the title "The works of Edgar Allen Poe" and then includes a number from 1 to 10, and then has a brief description of the contents of that volume.

For example, the first four volumes are:

The works of Edgar Allen Poe 1 Introduction and poems
The works of Edgar Allen Poe 2 Tales of marvelous adventure
The works of Edgar Allen Poe 3 Tales of marvelous adventure
The works of Edgar Allen Poe 4 Tales of crime

But when I am looking at the library, the titles appear in an apparently random order, like this:

The works of Edgar Allen Poe 2 Tales of marvelous adventure
The works of Edgar Allen Poe 3 Tales of marvelous adventure
The works of Edgar Allen Poe 1 Introduction and poems
The works of Edgar Allen Poe 4 Tales of crime

Why doesn't Zotero list them in alphabetical/numerical order, as it does for other series of volumes that I have?

bwiernik

Do you have the full title of “The works of Edgar Allen Poe 2 Tales of marvelous adventure”, etc in the Title field, or are the volume number and volume title in another field?

cl417

Hi bwiernik,

Everything is in the title field.

adamsmith

And that might be an obvious question but you are _sorting_ by title? (and we're talking about the Zotero middle pane, right?)

cl417

I am not sorting by title, I'm sorting by call number. In this case the call numbers are all the same ("810 Poe"). But I have other multi-volume works that have the same call number, but which sort correctly.

bwiernik

If you click the column selection, what is listed under the Secondary Sort (Call Number)?

cl417

Also, when I do sort by title, the Poe works are sorted correctly.

bwiernik

After sorting by Call Number, when you click the column selection button, what is listed under the Secondary Sort (Call Number)?

cl417

The secondary sort was by "creator," which I assume is the author in the case of a book. But then I selected "title" as the secondary sort and now the volumes are sorted correctly.

Thanks very much for your help!