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Fall 2006 Conference Roundtables

Roundtable Discussions: Indexing Different Materials

Meeting participants broke up into five group of five to nine people for moderated discussions of indexing different subject areas or materials: textbook indexing, scholarly indexing, technical indexing, business indexing, and periodical/database indexing. The participants could choose one table for about 15 minutes and then switched to a second table for another 15 minutes, and then a final, third table for 15 minutes. Following are summaries of the discussion of each of the roundtables submitted by their moderators.

Textbook Indexing
Moderated by Susan Holbert and summarized by Terri Corry

Susan Holbert began her roundtable discussion with tips for finding work as a textbook indexer. Word-of-mouth referrals are her most common source of work, but The Literary Marketplace is also a good place to start. Many textbooks are now put together by book packagers, and the packagers can be more difficult to find, because they are not always listed in LMP. Whether you are marketing to a production editor or book packager, be sure to discuss your strengths, especially if you are new to indexing. You must be confident of your abilities!

Susan also spent some time discussing what makes textbook indexing different from other types of indexing. The index now functions as a marketing tool, and it must often include state standards and specific terminology. This adds another element to the indexing process, and she sometimes finds the need to charge more for including state standards.

Scholarly Indexing
Moderated and summarized by Heather Dubnick

Our discussion covered the definition of scholarly indexing (what kinds of texts are included), scholarly reference, the importance of specialization/subject knowledge, university presses and other academic publishers, and acknowledgment of indexers in scholarly texts. We also talked more generally about how to start an indexing business, subcontracting, writing a proposal, project rates (flat rates, per page rates, per hour rates), resumes for freelancers (one participant said she had sent out resumes in the form of an index!), contacting publishers (using Writer's Market and Literary Marketplace), reaching authors at local universities and colleges (e.g. getting on the administrative assistant's rolodex), and contracts.

Technical Book Indexing
Moderated and summarized by Seth Maislin

As we spoke about indexing technical books -- where we defined "technical" as essentially instructional, and therefore not necessarily about computers -- we looked closely at the three major differences between this genre and others. First, although there are many technical books produced by publishers (e.g., the Dummies series at IDG Press), there are far more technical documents produced by other kinds of companies (e.g., Maytag, Microsoft, Motorola). It is very challenging to build relationships with these companies because most of their indexers are written by their technical writers; consequently, indexers are more likely to serve as teachers or consultants than to work as the actual index writers. When a technical book is written by a publisher, often it is written independent of what it's about.

Outside of textbooks, many users of technical documentation are approaching the materials with a sense of urgency, and also perhaps an annoyance they they were unable to discover the information without having to look up. For example, someone might consult the manual only when their product fails to function properly. The total audience also demonstrates a wide breadth of knowledge proficiency, from beginner user to advanced user; this is not unique to technical books, although it is perhaps more obvious than in other genres.

The third issue discussed was that of money. Because technical books often are perceived as "hard to index" -- because the content seems so far removed from general knowledge -- technical indexers tend to get paid well. Nevertheless, the indexer is expected to understand much about the technology while empathizing with the beginner; sometimes this feels like a paradox! Another reasons technical indexers are well paid is because deadlines. Manuals are often written during the design of the product itself; delays in building the product affect the writing, which in turn affects the indexing. Technical books that are not manuals are also rushed because they also may be dependent on product release, they are competing with other publishers for market share, and they must face the real possibility that the book contents will be obsolete in only a short while. And yet it is this last reason that technical indexers can remain busy throughout their lifetimes.

Business Indexing
Moderated and summarized by May Hasso

The roundtable discussion began with defining the areas that come under business including: advertising, banking, customer relationship management, finance, investment, real estate, international business, management, economics, and others. The business books are either catered to the general public, professionals, and students.

Indexing business books require a general background in business as well as knowledge of the terminology. The structure of the index follows the same rules and specification like any other book. Marketing your services follows the same approach as any other specialty.

Periodical/Database Indexing
Moderated and summarized by Heather Hedden

It was explained at the beginning that individual periodicals can be indexed in a similar manner as books by means of using dedicated book indexing software, but if articles are numerous with frequent issues and/or there are multiple periodicals in the same index, then use of a controlled vocabulary becomes desirable, and in order to integrate a controlled vocabulary into the indexing process a database is desirable. Furthermore, if periodical issues are frequent (daily or weekly, rather than monthly) and the index needs continual updating, then a database also serves as a better form of indexing, for the index is continually updated with the indexing of each new article record.

Heather related that she has even indexed books by means of database indexing and a controlled vocabulary for the database publisher Gale Group. She has found that this method of being restricted to controlled vocabulary for predetermined chapter sections is not a very precise method of indexing books.

Much of the conversation dealt with the issue of finding freelance work in database indexing. Linda King said she has seen full-time positions advertised for Newsbank in Chester, Vermont, but nothing freelance. Heather does freelance database indexing for Gale, but that was her former employer. My Hasso had contacted the correct indexing manager at Gale over a year ago, but has never received any work from them. Heather explained that Gale subcontracts freelance indexing and vocabulary maintenance to Factiva, a Dow Jones Company, and recommended that interested freelancers contact Factiva for work.

Three employees of EBSCO Publishing, the largest periodicals database publisher in New England were present. Sheila Dykstra of EBSCO said that EBSCO is growing and hiring more full-time on-site indexers, but that they still have not begun to use freelancers. This is something EBSCO might consider doing in the future, especially since she has found that that there is a large pools of talented freelance indexers in the area, who would be willing to come to the Ipswich office at least for some initial training.

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