Index (publishing) Totally Explained

Everything about Index Publishing totally explained

An index is a list of words and associated pointers to where those words can be found in a document. In a traditional back-of-the-book index the words (or phrases) are concepts selected by a person and the pointers are page numbers or other pointers such as paragraph or section numbers. In a library catalog the words are authors, titles, subject headings, etc., and the pointers are call numbers. Internet search engines, such as Google, are indexes too. The words are words found in HTML (or other documents), and the pointers are URL's.

Purpose

Indexes are designed to help the reader find information quickly and easily. A complete and truly useful index isn't simply a list of the words and phrases used in a publication (which is properly called a concordance), but an organized map of its contents, including cross-references, grouping of like concepts, and other useful intellectual analysis.
   Sample back-of-the-book index excerpt:
ť sage, 41-42. See also Herbs ← directing the reader to related terms

   Scarlet Sages. See Salvia coccinea ← redirecting the reader to term used in the text ť shade plants ← grouping term (may not appear in the text; may be generated by indexer)

   :hosta, 93 ← subentries ť :myrtle, 46

   :Solomon's seal, 14 ť sunflower, 47 ← regular entry

In books, indexes are usually placed near the end (this is commonly known as "BoB" or back-of-book indexing). They complement the table of contents by enabling access to information by specific subject, whereas contents listings enable access through broad divisions of the text arranged in the order they occur.

Indexing process

The traditional process

The indexing process usually begins with a reading of the text, during which indexable (significant) concepts are identified and the terms to be used to represent those concepts are selected and sometimes marked (for example with a highlighter), or more likely, entered into a professional indexing software program. The indexer may make a second pass through the text during which he or she enters the terms into an index document, creating subentries where appropriate. Professional indexing software handles such tasks as formatting the index and arranging the entries into alphabetical order. The final task involves editing to improve consistency, accuracy, and usefulness, and to ensure it follows publisher's guidelines.
Indexers must analyze the text to enable presentation of concepts and ideas in the index that may not be named within the text. The index is meant to help the reader, researcher, or information professional, not the author, find information, so the professional indexer must act as a liaison between the text and the its ultimate user.
Indexing is often done by freelancers hired by publishers or book packagers. Some publishers and database companies employ indexers.

Modern indexing

There are several dedicated, indexing software programs available to assist with the special sorting and copying needs involved in index preparation. The most widely known include Cindex, Macrex, and SkyIndex.
Increasing interest in the use of electronic documents has led to the development of embedded indexing, where index terms are inserted into appropriate places in one or more source documents using some kind of markup language. An accurate, sorted list of these marked index terms ("index entries") can then be generated dynamically from the source document(s) at any time. This is a standard, yet little known, feature of many popular word processing programs such as Microsoft Word, StarWriter/Openoffice.org Writer, and WordPerfect. With sufficient effort, these can become true indexes, rather than concordances (as discussed above). They eliminate of the drugery, but are certainly no substitute for good indexing skills, and are not as flexible as special-purpose indexing software.

Index quality

Everyone has experienced a bad index; it's almost worse than no index at all. Some principles of good indexing include:

Ensure each of your topics/sections includes a variety of relevant index entries; use two or three entries per topic
Analyse your audience and understand what kind of index entries they're likely to look for
Use the same form throughout (singular vs. plural, capitalisation, etc.), preferably using standard indexing conventions
One grouping approach uses nouns as the first level entries with verbs as the second level

Indexing pitfalls:

Topics with no index entries at all

Duplicate entries under different names (ie. "word processors" and "processors, word"). This is a problem only if entries are inconsistent, for example, contain different locators. However, the process of double-posting entries under one or more terms can help users find the information, since they may very well use a term different from that used in the text.

Inconsistently indexing similar topics

Indexer roles

Some indexers specialize in specific formats such as scholarly books, microforms, web indexing (the application of a back-of-book-style index to a website or intranet), search engine indexing, database indexing (the application of a pre-defined controlled vocabulary such as MeSH to articles for inclusion in a database), periodical indexing (indexing of newspapers, journals, magazines).
With their expertise in controlled vocabularies, some indexers also works as taxonomists and ontologists.
Some indexers specialize in particular subject areas, such as anthropology, business, computers, economics, education, government documents, history, law, mathematics, medicine, psychology, and technology. An indexer can be found for any subject.

References in popular culture

Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle includes a character who is a professional indexer and believes that "indexing [is] a thing that only the most amateurish author [undertakes] to do for his own book." She claims to be able to read an author's character through the index he created for his own history text, and warns the narrator, an author, "Never index your own book."

Standards

ISO 999:1996 Guidelines for the Content, Organization, and Presentation of Indexes (this is also the national standard in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand)

Societies

Indexing Society of Canada

American Society for Indexing

Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers

British Society of Indexers

China Society of Indexers Further Information

Get more info on 'Index Publishing'.

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