Tagging Ordinal Numbers

Volume and edition numbers are frequently given as ordinal numbers (first, second, third) and abbreviated with a “th” or “rd” either directly following the number or in a superscript (<sup>) following the number. Each publisher or archive will need to decide whether or not these suffixes are part of the element’s content.

For example, consider the citation that lists the edition as “4th” :

• Archives and publishers who wish to regularize content for searching can eliminate these extra characters and tag the edition as <edition>4<edition>.
• Archives who wish record each detail of the printed volume exactly can retain these extra characters: <edition>4<edition>^th.