Past meeting: August 3-4, 2001
Summer Meeting in Richland: A Chapter Event

By Kathy Sychra and Shirley Hansen

Surprisingly temperate weather greeted the visiting indexers as they arrived in the Tri-cities area on Friday afternoon, August 3, 2001. The summer meeting of PNW/ASi in Richland, Washington, opened with a peer review. Five indexers gathered in the library of the Consolidated Information Center at 5:00 in the afternoon on Friday. In the hour and a half allotted for the peer review, they thoroughly covered three indexes: the index of a municipal code; the index of a new book on fundraising; and the index from Dialects of English, a book published about 20 years ago. Veteran indexer, Nancy Donnelly, who chaired the session, summed things up with the reminder that the indexer's job is to "point the way" to the information.

As the peer review was concluding, Do Mi Stauber joined the group and shared an interesting anecdote about the misconceptions people have about indexing. An author had asked her to specifically recommend someone "who can index concepts." Do Mi's reply: "Any professional indexer can index concepts!"

Following the peer review and officers' meeting, about 25 conference attendees met for dinner at The Samovar, a delightful Russian restaurant in the the heart of Richland.

On Saturday morning, President Barbara Kempf opened the meeting by recognizing the many volunteers who helped with the Richland meeting. Each volunteer received a colorful "thank you" bookmark. Judy Dunlop, from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, was the indexer who traveled the greatest distance to attend the meeting. Her prize: two of the snappy new ASI luggage tags.

The group then proceeded to settle down for an intellectual, entertaining, and highly informational workshop called Facing the Text: Context Analysis and Entry Selection in Social Sciences and Humanities Indexing. The workshop was facilitated by the petite, dynamic, and high-energy Do MI Stauber, a well-respected veteran indexer. Her smile and warm personality kept the participants absorbed in indexing throughout the 6-hour workshop. What might seem to some like a dry topic was well presented and interspersed with humor and many key phrases--some new, some not so new, lit "it depends" and "low-hanging fruit." The areas that Do MI covered included indexing process awareness, main topics, indexable topics, index structure, subheadings, cross references, and wording. The participants contributed much to the workshop with their inquiries and comments. Do MI also presented her famous First and Second Rules of Indexing.

First Rule: If you're picking it up, pick it up! Any entry in the index must include all reference to that topic.

Second Rule: make subentries only as necessary for breaking down the main entry, not for the intrinsic worth.

A day like this is not complete without the complement of food. The morning had its usual array of breads, fruits, and juices. Lunch was a wonderful assortment of pastas, Caesar salad, bread, fruit and wonderful brownies and cookies. Following the workshop, those who could stay adjourned to the Atomic Ale Brewpub and Eatery in Richland to partake of some "atomic" dishes and brews. The place was hopping with about 25 of us (the noise was almost deafening at times)!

All in all, it appeared that the meeting was another example of the great teamwork and volunteerism that we enjoy in our chapter. Kudos to all!