Indexes in E-Books

Electronic book readers such as the Kindle and the Nook have changed the way people read books. With the electronic book reader, pages are turned electronically and silently, but what happens when the user tries to look up a subject in the index?  The index is static.  It has the same list of subjects and page references… Continue reading Indexes in E-Books

Concordances vs. Indexes

An index requires a degree of sophistication and skill lacking in a computer-generated concordance.  A concordance is an alphabetical list of words with locations in the text, a somewhat rudimentary index.  The computer automates the process, parsing the text and collecting the index words and the locations in the text, then writing the generated concordance… Continue reading Concordances vs. Indexes

Going Rogue without an index

Sarah Palin’s autobiography, Going Rogue: An American Life, published in November 2009, lacked an index.  Why?  An index, as explored in the previous post, would have been an invaluable tool to the scholars who will undoubtedly refer to the 413-page book to survey the political climate during the 2008 presidential election and Sarah Palin’s role… Continue reading Going Rogue without an index

Welcome to Optimal Indexing, my indexing blog!

This blog will focus on optimal indexing for effective search retrieval.  How do you index books and documents in such a way that patrons will easily and effectively find the needed information?  As an Information Professional for Stellar Searches LLC, I depend on quality indexing to find the information that fulfills a query.  While I… Continue reading Welcome to Optimal Indexing, my indexing blog!