ASI 2023 Virtual Conference: Mapping Words–A Writer on the Mysterious World of Indexing

August 5th, 2023

The American Society for Indexing held its 2023 Virtual Conference, “The Eyes Have It: The Indexer Perspective–Past, Present & Future,” on Friday, April 28, 2023 and Saturday, April 29, 2023.  Four sessions were held virtually on Zoom each day.

The fourth session on Friday, Mapping Words: A Writer on the Mysterious World of Indexing, was presented by June Sawyers, who is both a writer and an indexer.  She focused her talk on writers who are also indexers, such as Virginia Woolf, as well as the traits writers and indexers need to possess in order to be successful.

Virginia Woolf wrote an index for her book, Orlando, with sub-entries for the character showing cross-dressing and his arch of life.  She and her husband started a literary press, Hogarth Press, to publish literary works by friends, and so she wrote indexes for these books.

Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, was also a writer and an indexer.  He wrote an index for his last novel, Sylvie and Bruno.  His entries were humorous and whimsical, she said, with such subject headings as the following:

  • bed, reasons for never going to
  • sobriety, extreme inconvenience of

A contemporary writer and indexer is Larry Sweazy, who writes the murder mystery series, which includes See Also Murder.

The traits of a successful writer include:

  • read quickly and carefully
  • good communication skills
  • commitment and perseverance
  • self-motivation
  • empathy with the reader
  • work alone for long periods of time
  • detail-oriented
  • good spelling
  • grammar skills
  • good organization skills
  • think theoretically
  • wide general knowledge
  • passion for reading
  • independent

The traits of an indexer are much the same as that of a writer, except that an indexer is usually anonymous.  A novel also might take years to write, and an index has a much shorter deadline.

In the next blog posting, I will discuss the first Saturday session of the ASI 2023 Virtual Conference.  For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com.

 

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ASI 2023 Virtual Conference: The History of Stoplists

July 2nd, 2023

The American Society for Indexing held its 2023 Virtual Conference, “The Eyes Have It: The Indexer Perspective–Past, Present & Future,” on Friday, April 28, 2023 and Saturday, April 29, 2023.  Four sessions were held virtually on Zoom each day.

The third session on Friday, The History of Stoplists: Lists of Words Not Indexed, was presented by Bella Hass Weinberg, a Professor at St. John’s University.  Stoplists (lists of words not indexed) were thought to be developed in the 1950s in conjunction with automatic indexing.  The first Hebrew concordance (word index) to the Bible, entitled Me’ir Nativ (15th century), contained a stoplist that is similar to modern ones in that it consists of function words, such as prepositions.  Me’ir Nativ was modeled on the Latin Biblical concordance of Arlottus.

Selected words from the Hebrew stoplist of Me’ir Nativ include:

  • all                                      lest                                         thus
  • already                              maybe                                    to
  • also                                    not                                        under
  • because                             only                                       very
  • before                                or                                           was
  • between                            please                                    what
  • but                                     she                                         when
  • for                                      that                                        who
  • from                                   then                                       why
  • he                                      therefore                                with
  • how                                    these
  • if                                         this

 

She discussed theological debates over the meanings of function words and related the concept of stoplist to indexable matter.   She also described common terminology for stopwords and stoplists in search engine optimization, computing, and artificial intelligence.

In the next blog posting, I will discuss the following Friday session of the ASI 2023 Virtual Conference.  For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com.

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ASI 2023 Virtual Conference: How and When to Hire Someone to Edit or Proofread Your Indexes

June 28th, 2023

The American Society for Indexing held its 2023 Virtual Conference, “The Eyes Have It: The Indexer Perspective–Past, Present & Future,” on Friday, April 28, 2023 and Saturday, April 29, 2023.  Four sessions were held virtually on Zoom each day.

The second session on Friday, Another Set of Eyes: How and When to Hire Someone to Edit or Proofread Your Indexes, was presented by Michelle Guiliano.  She discussed her relationship with index editor Laurie Hlavaty.  Her experience with index edits originated from subcontract work, and with an editor who specialized in scientific and medical texts, then with an indexer who also provides editing and proofreading services.  She found that since she was going over and over her indexes before submitting them, that having index evaluations with feedback would be beneficial.

Types of index edits:

  • indexing skills evaluation with feedback
  • proofreading
    • She said it is helpful to have another set of eyes going over your index.
  • editing
    • This checks structural issues, word choice, metadata, main headings, cross-references, double-posts, and page references.  Editing also checks for clarity and conciseness.
  • proofreading and editing
    • She said that this is the ideal situation.
  • peer reviews vs. index edits
    • She said that peer reviews are not a substitute for index edits.

She outlined the downsides–the cost of paying for the index edits, the time working the index edit into your schedule, the time reworking the index after the edit, and the upfront investment.  Then she weighed them with the upsides–time of cushion built into indexing schedule, as well as forced distance from index, cost as tax-deductible, efficiency, quality of reader’s perspective, catching mistakes, and improved indexing process, and peace of mind.

In the next blog posting, I will discuss the following Friday session of the ASI 2023 Virtual Conference.  For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com.

 

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ASI 2023 Virtual Conference: Metadata at The New York Times

May 7th, 2023

The American Society for Indexing held its 2023 Virtual Conference, “The Eyes Have It: The Indexer Perspective–Past, Present & Future,” on Friday, April 28, 2023 and Saturday, April 29, 2023.  Four sessions were held virtually on Zoom each day.

The first session on Friday, Metadata at The New York Times: Organizing and Leveraging News Content from 1851-Today, was presented by Senior Taxonomist Jennifer Parrucci.  She showed how The New York Times is ahead of the curve when it comes to metadata and how that legacy has turned into a thorough process for content classification.  She also outlined how The Times leverages this metadata to push content to consumers, pull analytics and make sure things are easily findable in the archive.

She explained that clippings of newspaper articles and photos were kept in the Morgue in the basement of the newspaper building.  These were pasted to a card and kept in a card catalog to be searched.  The New York Times Index, a red reference book, was published from 1913 through 2017.  The index includes articles from the first issue in 1851 on.  Later, the newspaper could be searched by microfilm or microfiche.  Times Tags have been used for The Times website in the present.

Times Tags

  • Controlled vocabulary based off of the original index terms.
  • Named entities (over a million) of people, places, organizations, and titles
  • Subjects ~5,000.  These include semantic relations, broad, narrow and related terms and scope notes, and news events.
  • Assigned to all published assets.
  • Rule-based software
    • Entity extraction: normalization, disambiguation
      • Normalization example of choosing just one spelling for Qaddafi, Muammer el-
      • Disambiguation example of distinguishing between different names: Brown, Michael DeWayne (1954-) by adding certain subject words
    • Categorization: frequency, proximity, placement
  • Do not tag peripheral mentions, figurative language, historical references, spokespersons, people quoted

Tags are used today for Collections/Topics, Daily Email Recommendations for readers, Advertising, Search, and Audience Analytics.

The Archives go back to 1851.  The Times Machine is a tool for subscribers that is a digital microfiche, that is searchable and gives a link to buy reprints.  She highlighted some challenges with the Archives:

  • Ambiguous names and clashes in archives.
  • Offensive and outdated index terms in archives.  Need to update, without sanitizing history.
  • Problem digitizing list with label name as identifier.
  • Index knowledge passed down as apprenticeship.  Problem knowing what something was called without scope notes. For example, Watergate.

In the next blog posting, I will discuss the next Friday session of the ASI 2023 Virtual Conference.  For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com.

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ASI 2022 Virtual Conference: EPUB is Essential

December 4th, 2022

The American Society for Indexing held its 2022 Virtual Conference, “The Future of Indexing: A Mix of Art and Technology,” on Friday, April 29, 2022 and Saturday, April 30, 2022.  Four sessions were held virtually on Zoom each day.

The final session on Saturday, EPUB is Essential–It’s for more than just trade books, featured keynote speakers, Bill Kasdorf and Caroline Desrosiers, CEO and Founder of Scribely.  Kasdorf discussed EPUB, which has become virtually the universal format for providing trade and scholarly books as ebooks.  The latest version is EPUB3.

A fundamental reason for this shift is that EPUB 3 has become the standard format for accessibility.  It follows the same standards for accessibility that web technologies have, which are designed to enable content to be accessible to people with visual, physical, or cognitive disabilities like blindness, low vision, and dyslexia.  Properly structured and coded EPUBs are “born accessible,”  which are better for everybody.

Proper EPUBs have page break markers in the HTML to mark where each page in the print book begins and which provide the page numbers.  The metadata has a required property for identifying the exact print edition to which the page break markers correspond.  Publishers just need to link the locators in the index to those page break markers, which should become a standard requirement.

EPUBs often lack image descriptions, and alt text, if present, is rarely done properly.  The description isn’t just what an image is a picture of; it needs to convey to a print disabled user what the image conveys to a sighted user.  Indexers would be ideal writers of image descriptions, because it requires analyzing and understanding the content, and then expressing it at a granular level.  Desrosiers discussed the principles of writing good alt text and extended descriptions, with concrete examples.

This concludes the blog series on the ASI 2022 Virtual Conference.  For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com.

 

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ASI 2022 Virtual Conference: Upcycling Last Edition’s Index

November 2nd, 2022

The American Society for Indexing held its 2022 Virtual Conference, “The Future of Indexing: A Mix of Art and Technology,” on Friday, April 29, 2022 and Saturday, April 30, 2022.  Four sessions were held virtually on Zoom each day.

In the third session on Saturday, Using a Classic to Create a Contemporary Masterpiece, Maria Sullivan presented on how to upcycle the last edition’s index to create the index for a new edition.  Indexers are often asked to create an index for a subsequent edition of a publication.  The client asks to base the index for the new edition on the index for the previous edition.  Indexers often think that starting from scratch will yield better results.  Sullivan, however, said that reusing a well-constructed index to an older edition offers significant benefits, such as data entry efficiency and format consistency across a series of publications.

Ideal candidates for index recycling include structured publications with consistent formats, such as textbooks, law books, manuals and handbooks, reference books, encyclopedias, and loose-leaf services.  The common characteristic of these publications is that much of the terminology remains unchanged, so that the headings and cross-references of the prior index can be reused by importing the prior index as a plain text or XML file into indexing software.

Criteria to consider in deciding whether to recycle the previous index include the extent of page reflow, whether the new index requires minor additions with scattered changes or a general index update, or whether terms should be combined for a cumulative index.  The first step in recycling is a thorough vetting of the previous index to see how well it is structured.  The old index should be dissected to identify changes in pagination and relocation of material, and to determine the extent of the new material.  She keeps separate files for each part, section, and chapter, and compares old to new, then decides how much of the index to reuse.  She recommends frequent backups of the index file at every stage while updating.

In the next blog posting I will discuss the last Saturday session of the ASI 2022 Virtual Conference.  For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com.

 

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ASI 2022 Virtual Conference: Indexing Children’s Books

October 3rd, 2022

The American Society for Indexing held its 2022 Virtual Conference, “The Future of Indexing: A Mix of Art and Technology,” on Friday, April 29, 2022 and Saturday, April 30, 2022.  Four sessions were held virtually on Zoom each day.

In the second session on Saturday, Indexing Children’s Books: The Future is Now!, presenter Connie Binder explored the art of indexing children’s books.  She described the different age levels of children’s books and the depth of index required for each.  She pointed out that indexes in children’s books serve as much to educate young readers about indexes as they do to help them locate specific information.

Focusing on the indexing process and best practices, she discussed publisher guidelines, which determine the size and depth of the index and what is indexed.  Indexers can save time by determining the average number of entries per page given the maximum index size.  She discussed the use (or not) of cross-references, double posting, and subentries, as well as over/underindexing.

She also covered the business aspects of indexing children’s books, getting jobs, keeping overhead low, and ensuring job security by creating lifelong index users.

In the next blog posting I will discuss the third Saturday session of the ASI 2022 Virtual Conference.  For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com.

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ASI 2022 Virtual Conference: Indexing the Metatopic

September 4th, 2022

The American Society for Indexing held its 2022 Virtual Conference, “The Future of Indexing: A Mix of Art and Technology,” on Friday, April 29, 2022 and Saturday, April 30, 2022.  Four sessions were held virtually on Zoom each day.

In the first session on Saturday,  Indexing the Metatopic–Bridging the Gap Across the Pond, presenter Melanie Gee discussed contradictory practices in the US and the UK of indexing the metatopic: always index the metatopic comprehensively, or never index the metatopic (or if you must, only sparsely).  In her presentation, she referred to the stereotype of tea drinkers, UK, who never index the metatopic, and the coffee drinkers, US, who always index the metatopic.  Based on a survey she conducted with about sixty respondents, she found that practices in both the US and UK are actually quite similar.

She explained that the metatopic is the overarching, main topic of the book.  She said that identifying the metatopic will help you understand the structure and argument of the book.  Every entry in the book is structurally related to the metatopic.

A majority of survey respondents answered that they indexed the metatopic for the last three books they indexed, with slightly more on the US side.  The most common response from UK indexers about not indexing the metatopic was concern about the metatopic being too broad and not wanting to index the whole book at the entry.  US indexers were mostly more concerned about the lack of general information about the metatopic and including only specific, chapter-level topics.

She then discussed different types of metatopics, such as simple, multiple, multifaceted, nebulous, and clustered metatopics, and reviewed methods for handling them in the index.

In the next blog posting I will discuss the second Saturday session of the ASI 2022 Virtual Conference.  For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com.

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ASI 2022 Virtual Conference: Improving Your Index Editing Process

August 4th, 2022

The American Society for Indexing held its 2022 Virtual Conference, “The Future of Indexing: A Mix of Art and Technology,” on Friday, April 29, 2022 and Saturday, April 30, 2022.  Four sessions were held virtually on Zoom each day.

In the fourth session on Friday, Fred Leise presented Laying the Ground for the Future: Improving Your Index Editing Process.  This presentation covered the steps in a simple yet exhaustive index editing process that cuts down on hours of unnecessary work.

Fred shared some of the ways he works when building an index to make editing more efficient.  Fred indexes in heading/subheading pairs to provide context to an entry during the creation of an index.  Markers such as ## or XXX, which he uses during entry selection, help him address issues without losing time.

Fred makes a half dozen or so passes through an index in the editing process.  He reduces that by batching tasks where logical.

Here is Fred’s recommended editing sequence:

  1. Review and adjust marked items.
  2. Normalize entries.  Look for entries with five or fewer locators.  Collapse subheadings and move to main heading.
  3. Adjust the index length.
  4. Review all main headings.  The next pass is to read and edit main headings one by one.
  5. Review all subheadings.  During this pass, check for parallel structure, clarity and conciseness, and grammatical and mechanical consistency.  He checks for a clear relationship to the main heading and may combine similar subheadings.
  6. Review all cross references.  Verify all targets and that the format is the same.
  7. Review locators.  Look for both long strings of undifferentiated locators–adding appropriate subheadings–and headings with unruly locators.  He checks that no locators go beyond the final page of the text and looks for overlapping pages and ranges.  Check for formatting of special designations and that locators have been correctly conflated.
  8. Complete a general edit.  Verify alphabetization style (letter by letter or word by word), check spelling, and check that index format and style elements match the publisher’s style sheet.
  9. Do a final read through.  Read every single word.

In the next blog posting I will discuss the first Saturday session of the ASI 2022 Virtual Conference.  For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com.

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ASI 2022 Virtual Conference: Marketing for the Successful Solo Practice

July 3rd, 2022

The American Society for Indexing held its 2022 Virtual Conference, “The Future of Indexing: A Mix of Art and Technology,” on Friday, April 29, 2022 and Saturday, April 30, 2022.  Four sessions were held virtually on Zoom each day.

In the third session on Friday, Marketing for the Successful Solo Practice, marketing guru John Coe discussed how solo practitioners can find, sell, and grow their business using savvy targeted marketing.  He focused on four elements in successful marketing campaigns:

  • How to identify the correct person–the most important element
  • What to offer to interest and gain new clients
  • Why communicating by blending email, mail, and phone is best
  • How to write copy that engages and sells

He also covered methods for building relationships and loyalty.  He distributed a white paper with his tips to attendees.

The first step is to define the prospective target company and individuals.  For indexers that would be the following:

  • Production editors
  • Academic editors
  • Packagers
  • Authors

He suggests setting up a database of contact information, which you could load in an Excel file unless you have a CRM or marketing automation system.  Good sources for identifying possible targets include the following:

  • LinkedIn
  • NextMark
  • Literary Marketplace
  • Publishers Global (a directory of publishing houses)
  • Association of University Presses

The three most common methods of targeted marketing are email, postal mail, and phone calls.  He suggests mixing these–for example, send an initial email and follow up with a phone call a few days later.  He said that postal mail can be surprisingly powerful, since a person actually holds and interacts with a letter.

He said it is important not to give up, since the average response rate to mailings is only 2.9 percent, and on average it takes fourteen emails to someone who doesn’t know the sender before they respond.

In the next blog posting I will discuss the fourth Friday session of the ASI 2022 Virtual Conference.  For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com.

 

 

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