Summer 2001

These responses were gathered from 23 respondents to the posting on INDEX-PNW. Thanks for sharing your answers.

How did you find out about indexing?

• 5 read about it in a "working from home" type book (1 of them had a manager who wouldn't promote her unless she had an area of specialization & one of these books sparked her interest)
• 4 got jobs as indexers before really knowing about it
• 4 heard about it from friends
• 2 indexed as part of job before really knowing about it
• 1 stated that it's a regular function of her job, but didn't say how she first learned about it.
• 1 took an indexing class in library/information science school
• 1 heard about it in library/information science school, but dove in after a colleague asked her about it
• 1 saw an announcement for an indexing class & as a heavy user of indexes
• 1 heard about it from a friend who's a PNW/ASI member
• 1 read the Eugene Register Guard indexing article
• 1 read the Money indexing article
• 1 read about it in a publication from the Editorial Freelance Association
• One other interesting, hard-to-categorize answer was "I learned to index at Twin Oaks, an intentional community."

When you tell people that you're an indexer, how do you briefly, but accurately, respond to "What's that!?" and the accompanying looks of amazement?

• Most respondents simply stated things like: "You know, those alphabetical things in the back of books...."
• The most thorough answer was:
• "You know what indexes are, those pages at the back of your high school history book? I write such pages. Yes, a machine can do that, but I can do it better. A machine can write an index that reproduces and alphabetizes what is stated in the book. I can
  • write an index that says what the book doesn't say
  • lead a reader to what the book implies
  • lead a reader to what the book is REALLY about
  • distill a book to its pithy kernels
  • organize the pithy kernels in a way that makes them easy to find
  • ensure that a reader finds every kernel
  • ensure that every kernel is truly pithy
  • make a book easy to use
  • make a reader come back to a book"

Some unique answers included:

• "... I start by saying..."I write...". These two words seem to frame the profession for people so they hear a familiar word. I then go on and explain that I write indexes for books..."
• "...it's as much art as science. I usually mention that indexes are copyrightable."
• "Once they get that [back-of-the-book indexes], I explain how it applies to online/database environments..."
• "... I then tell them the process of publishing books and the time crunch that is available for indexing."
• "My newest client was surprised that I worked from hard copy and not disk. He asked how I could be sure to pick up all the occurrences of an author without searching text on disk. I explained that I read each page and entered all occurrences as they came up and that the software then sorted and formatted. He groaned and said, "Isn't that awfully tedious?" My answer was that it depended on the book (and of course his book would be nothing but fun!)."
• "I agree with them that it is an unknown "niche," then I mention one aspect of indexing - usually something short about how an indexer gathers discussions together so the reader can find all traces of the discussion in the book at one location in the index, or two reasons why a computer can't do a user-friendly index."
• "... Usually from there, they ask a few more questions, which usually includes, "So, you actually read the entire book?" "
• "When they ask me why a computer cannot do that (which they invariably do), by marking key words, I tell them that such information needs to be categorized in such a way that the reader can find what s/he wants, that an indexer's job is to determine key words that the reader would look under. The author doesn't necessarily use these key words, even if s/he does mark words that could be construed as her/his key words. I tell them that it requires sussing out who the readers are and what they might be looking for.
  When they groan at the idea of such "tedious and boring" work, I am suffused with a certain warmth of utter smugness, feeling I might have finally lit on a job that works for me but is so repulsive to others, making the field less ridiculously competitive [than others]."
• An archivist said "I help people find what they are looking for by giving them descriptors to choose from and the location of that information."
• Several respondents don't consider themselves indexers yet because they're still in the learning process.

What's the toughest index you've ever created and why?

• Several respondents mentioned they were still finishing training or hadn't quite begun doing work for fees yet.
• "... my first trade book (a For Dummies Quick Reference). Since I usually index manuals, I'm not used to having length limitations. I discovered I was 4 pages over the limit, and had to cut back to 10. Each pass got more and more painful to watch. Ouch!"
• "A series of filters for a customizable CD-ROM timeline. It was difficult because several people were doing the index, and initially, there wasn't a format for consistent keywords. Supposedly we were supposed to be indexing articles on unique topics, but there was some overlap. Hence, multiple keywords for the same subject matter. Oy veh!"
• "An index for a 1600 page 2-volume 1911 History book -- probably because it is the first real index I have completed and because the size of the text."
• "The one for a 2-volume user/ref manual for a focused ion beam, and extremely complex system. The index ended up being 60 pages, double columns."
• "There will never be a book as tough as that first one under fire. It was a book on neurotransmitters and gene expression (my background is soil chemistry, not biological anything). It was my make-it or break-it chance at indexing. I'd probably never get another client willing to try me. There was no way out but through. The first time through the book, I could hardly tell the nouns from the verbs. Each subsection related 3 things together (the effect of this on that and that), so selecting subheadings was hard. And it was my first full-length index. I had 3 weeks to finish it (and was still working at my day job). After panicking, I was able to create an index of some sort. I then went through and re-indexed the whole book, coming up with an index that was (apparently) acceptable.
  One thing that's sometimes hard for new indexers is the lack of feedback from clients. After several more indexes, I asked the managing editor how my indexes were. She said she didn't know, she'd ask the editors. The next time I heard from her, she said she'd asked them and they said they were fine. I guess no news is good news."
• "My hardest ones have to do with how to best organize the information that comes to me in complex ways. Perhaps THE hardest one was my first - I didn't know which rules to break to make the index make the best sense, and I had too tight a deadline. After working 17 hours a day for 6 days, I could hardly make a decision about anything anymore. The ones outside my fields are also harder than those in my fields."
• "The hardest indexing project I worked on was a team project at a software company. The material wasn't hard to index; it was the process in place to create the index. The other indexer on the team and I worked very well, but we had to keep reindexing material because of constant changes in the content. A project that would have normally taken a month was completed in slightly over a year."
• "My toughest index was my 2nd project -- it was on data management and I knew *nothing* about the field and so terminology was a huge obstacle for me. Luckily, the book had a glossary which helped somewhat, but I was overwhelmed and close to tears by the end of the project. However, I got it done and it turned out okay."
• "A poetry textbook. Concepts were separated and scattered - and often unnamed -- throughout the book, which was rather organic and arranged around types of expression and subjects for poetry rather than around techniques and concepts. There were also a zillion student poems to index. It was a great way to teach poetry writing to high school and college kids, but a bear to index. "
• "My most difficult conceptually was a text that ended up being quite different than the authors explained. I was first told that the text was about legal impacts of human rights abuses in Bosnia-Herzegovina and I took the project after being assured the text was more from the human rights aspect and less from the legal aspect (I have no legal expertise). It was a compilation of articles by various authors - experts in human rights and law relating to B-H. The text had the usual difficulties of multi-authored works, the graphic descriptions of horrific abuses made it emotionally draining, the legalese was thicker than I was led to believe it would be (and was over my head), and the editors had never worked with an indexer before so I did a lot of explaining."
• "An index for a book of essays on classical music. The same piece of music might be referred to in three different ways within one or more essays, and I had to use a huge and complicated reference source to determine which piece was being referred to and then choose the "best" form to include in the index, and then categorize the variouse types of pieces (concerto, sonata, opera, piano duet etc) It was really time consuming and then the editor had to edit my work some more due to my lack of expertise in the field."
• "... the indexing I am currently doing for an ongoing pharmaceutical project. It is database indexing, and the sources of info keep springing unexpected surprises on me."
• "My toughest involved translated text on a highly technical topic. "
• "Most of them, because I tend to get tangled up in the question of exactly which term I should use. I've started making a controlled vocabulary list. That helps."
• Our archivist respondent said "a collection of personal papers and correspondence because of the variety and recurring references in various contexts."

What's the most interesting index you've ever created and why?

• "... probably for a science fiction novel that I had to read for a physics class. I made a practice index for it while I was still in school to avoid taking notes and to make answering the homework questions easier. I had to think of concepts (not to mention ways to index the alien names) that would allow me to find things quickly. Then I got to test it out whenever we had homework! (I found a few holes, but it was still helpful.)"
• "Encarta's index, just because of the format and variety of content."
• "The same 2-volume user/ref manual for a focused ion beam, and extremely complex system. Because it was so challenging"
• "For me, the interest lies in the subject matter. The most unusual: Yiddish proletariat theatre wicked women" and gender reconfiguration in Africa. The most informative: the First World War biography of Diego Rivera. The grossest: human papillomavirus in Dendrovenereology (I gave the copy to my nephew when he turned 18 and told him to be careful). The most disagreeable: CEO pay and shareholder value (why it's good for shareholders when CEOs make big $$)."
• "I wrote the index for Peter Wotton's book of short radio broadcasts. For the ten years before he died, he wrote and produced Elderberry Wine (issues of interest to older folks, which happened to be of interest to everyone else too) for the local NRP affiliate. I thought the index needed to be very warm and human; and I also wanted it to reflect his style. I used some techniques from indexes like the one in The Anthology of Bad Verse."
• "The most interesting indexing projects I've done are for children's publishers. The reason is that the content is very interesting, regardless of the subject matter."
• "The most interesting index was my very first project. The book was on conflict resolution and I found the text informative, easy to read, and applicable to daily life. As such, I found the index fun to put together; and, given it was my first "paid" project, how could I not find it enthralling!!"
• "A book about the state of wildlife along the Lewis and Clark trail as the expedition's bicentenniel approaches. The book was elegant and lyrical non-fiction, incorporating plenty of interesting anecdotes from the historical expedition interwoven with the modern-day trek, which gave some fun index entries ("Lewis, Merriwether...adopted by bison calf"). And it was extremely well organized."
• "Some of the books I've done on women's health have been very informative, but the travel books I index are the most fun!"
• "I also just finished indexing a book about the entrepreneur who brought the Goodwill Games to Seattle and then went on to organize relief efforts in the former Soviet Union. The pressure in getting that one out was tremendous, but the material is interesting to have indexed."
• "I suppose the ones that stand out have either taught me about a new field or idea and/or brought up interesting challenges as an indexer."
• "Too hard to answer since each of the indexes I create is to a unique body of records--all are interesting and absorbing but for a variety of reasons."
• "Reading 'interesting' as 'helpful', an index I created for one of my syntax texts was the best--especially for open book tests. The index that came with the book did not have most of what I was interested in finding."
  
  
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