There are two forms because the Index-Catalogue collection includes both book and journal literature. The Library applied a long form of name, when available, (last name, first name, initials, date) to books and other monographs. This is consistent with current cataloging policy for LocatorPlus^®. Journal articles and other analytic materials contain the short name form (last name, initials). This is similar but not identical to shortened names in MEDLINE. The Index-Catalogue collection currently contains punctuation and spaces between each initial. MEDLINE does not.

Book example:

IndexCat: Hunter, John, 1728-1793.

LocatorPlus: Hunter, John, 1728-1793.

Journal example:

IndexCat: Smith, R. W.

MEDLINE: Smith RW