A tiny shim around the OCLC's java code that performs NACO normalization, a string normalization process used by libraries (and others) to normalize author and title strings for sorting purposes.

See http://www.loc.gov/aba/pcc/naco/normrule-2.html for more information about NACO normalization

The called Java code adapted from https://code.google.com/p/oclcnaconormalizer/ and copyright OCLC

# default normalizer strips html, keeps the first comma
# (for "Lastname, Firstname" support) and lowercases
# everything (where "lowercase" means "do the appropriate
# thing given the script being used")

author_normalizer = NacoNormalizer.new
sortable_author = author_normalizer.normalize(author_name)

# When normalizing titles, we don't want to keep the first
# comma -- throw it out with all the rest of the punctuation
title_normalizer  = NacoNormalizer.new(:keep_first_comma => false)
sortable_title  = title_normalizer.normalize(title)

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'NacoNormalizer'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install NacoNormalizer

v0.9.2 2013-12-06

• Use the updated 2007 normalization code
• Simplify interface to only expose most common use case

v0.9.1 2013-12-06

• Fixed issues with the gemspec re: homepage and license

v0.9.0 2013-12-06

• First public release

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request