In a list of organizations, should names which begin with "The" be alphabetized by the first letter of the next word - as in, "The Center ..." under C? Or under T for The?

Thanks!

I have seen different methods. Most recently, for a list of movies, The Blob was shown alpha with the b's, but "The" was in its normal place.
The methd I prefer is "Blob, The". I think the word "the" listed out of order in with a,b, c causes confusion until you figure out what's going on. With "the" at the end you find what you are looking for much quicker. Listing all the "The's" together is a train wreck. Just my opinion.

How would you file
L.Mattes, Inc.

Should it go under the letter L or M

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Originally Posted by PHR Web

In a list of organizations, should names which begin with "The" be alphabetized by the first letter of the next word - as in, "The Center ..." under C? or under T for The?

Thanks!

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The Black Rabbit Company should be listed as

Black Rabbit Company, The

The organization name should be listed under "T" as "The" is the first word in the official name of the company.

Filing should begin with letter of the next word. For example, "The Teachers Camp" should be filed starting with the word teacher.

I think it has changed a bit recently. It used to be that any article would be ignored for alphabetizing and put at the end after a comma. But, now it seems so many companies have the article as part of their name. My vote would be that if the 'the' is part of the official name of the company it should be included in the alphabetizing.