Past meeting: September 29-30, 2001
Cookbooks and Moonlight
Eugene, Oregon

By Drew Proctor

Ah, a beautiful fall day in Eugene, Oregon. What could be more delightful? Perhaps a workshop on moonlighting as an indexer, another workshop on indexing cookbooks, delicious meals, and, last but not least, 35+ indexers from around the Northwest?

The day began with a peer review session and continental breakfast followed by the business meeting. Carolyn Weaver then regaled us with tales of her life as a moonlighting indexer in her "Indexing by Moonlight" presentation. Carolyn is eminently qualified to speak on this subject; she worked as a medical librarian at the University of Washington for 35 years and was also indexing 15-20 hours a week during the last 9 years! She started out by giving us a reality check to help us determine whether moonlighting is really the way to go and whether we planned to moonlighters or "hobby indexers." Then she enumerated the advantages and disadvantages of moonlighting (one of the main advantages being an excuse to neglect housework!) and discussed the ethics of holding a second job. Carolyn summed it all up in her "Ten Commandments of Moonlighting," which succinctly listed most of the ethical and health-related concerns of the moonlighter

A delicious buffet lunch followed Carolyn's presentation, which gave us time to network and discuss the morning's session.

The afternoon was spent with Therese Shere, an experienced cookbook indexer from the Bay Area. According to Therese, "a search of Books in Print reveals 990 cookery titles published in the U.S. in 2000, and another 93 titles devoted to wine." Therese explored some of the special characteristics of indexing cookbooks, especially formats and styles, and then covered the basics. Then she moved on to special issues such as modifiers in titles, attributions, variations, substitutions, illustrations, and single-topic cookbooks. She provided us with a 21-page handout of examples from cookbook indexes to illustrate her points. This really made it clear that cookbook indexing is a whole different ballgame. Then she wrapped up the workshop with a hands-on exercise; if there was any doubt about how different this game is, the exercise proved it.

The day finished with a dinner at the Hilton; entertainment was provided by the members' index-related limericks.