diff --git a/backend/src/main/java/com/storycove/service/SolrService.java b/backend/src/main/java/com/storycove/service/SolrService.java
index 38722b4..38d6d78 100644
--- a/backend/src/main/java/com/storycove/service/SolrService.java
+++ b/backend/src/main/java/com/storycove/service/SolrService.java
@@ -912,8 +912,8 @@ public class SolrService {
             solrQuery.setStart(page * limit);
             solrQuery.setRows(limit);
 
-            // Sorting - by name ascending
-            solrQuery.setSort("name", SolrQuery.ORDER.asc);
+            // Sorting - by name ascending (name_sort is a docValues string copy of name)
+            solrQuery.setSort("name_sort", SolrQuery.ORDER.asc);
 
             // Explicitly disable faceting
             solrQuery.setFacet(false);
@@ -1150,7 +1150,8 @@ public class SolrService {
         collection.setCoverImagePath((String) doc.getFieldValue("coverImagePath"));
         collection.setIsArchived((Boolean) doc.getFieldValue("isArchived"));
         collection.setStoryCount((Integer) doc.getFieldValue("storyCount"));
-        collection.setTotalWordCount((Integer) doc.getFieldValue("totalWordCount"));
+        Number totalWordCountVal = (Number) doc.getFieldValue("totalWordCount");
+        collection.setTotalWordCount(totalWordCountVal != null ? totalWordCountVal.intValue() : null);
         collection.setEstimatedReadingTime((Integer) doc.getFieldValue("estimatedReadingTime"));
 
         Double avgRating = (Double) doc.getFieldValue("averageStoryRating");
diff --git a/solr/collections/conf/managed-schema b/solr/collections/conf/managed-schema
index 6edc8cf..c85270e 100755
--- a/solr/collections/conf/managed-schema
+++ b/solr/collections/conf/managed-schema
@@ -42,6 +42,7 @@
   <fieldType name="boolean" class="solr.BoolField" sortMissingLast="true"/>
   <fieldType name="pdate" class="solr.DatePointField" docValues="true"/>
   <fieldType name="strings" class="solr.StrField" sortMissingLast="true" multiValued="true" docValues="true"/>
+  <fieldType name="string_facet" class="solr.StrField" sortMissingLast="true" docValues="true"/>
   <fieldType name="random" class="solr.RandomSortField" indexed="true"/>
 
   <!-- Fields -->
@@ -51,6 +52,7 @@
 
   <!-- Core Collection Fields -->
   <field name="name" type="text_enhanced" indexed="true" stored="true" required="true"/>
+  <field name="name_sort" type="string_facet" indexed="true" stored="false"/>
   <field name="description" type="text_general" indexed="true" stored="true"/>
   <field name="rating" type="pint" indexed="true" stored="true"/>
   <field name="coverImagePath" type="string" indexed="false" stored="true"/>
@@ -76,6 +78,7 @@
   <field name="text" type="text_general" indexed="true" stored="false" multiValued="true"/>
 
   <copyField source="name" dest="text"/>
+  <copyField source="name" dest="name_sort"/>
   <copyField source="description" dest="text"/>
   <copyField source="tagNames" dest="text"/>