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	New England Chapter American Society for Indexing Past Events

Fall 2010 Meeting Summary

October 16, 2010
Lexington, Massachusetts

The 2010 annual fall meeting of the New England Chapter of the American Society for Indexing (NEASI) was held on Saturday, October 16, at Cary Memorial Library in Lexington, Massachusetts. The event was well attended by over 30 people from throughout New England and beyond.

Polishing the Index - Enid Zafran, Owner of Indexing Partners (Speaker biography)
Enid began her workshop by asking participants to introduce themselves and to describe an interesting project they had worked on recently.  She then proceeded to go through her checklist of both the overall approach she takes toward her indexes and the specific quality-control procedures she employs.  One of her guiding principles is to be suspicious of things which don't “look right”—often they reflect a problem and need to be fixed. She also recommends “thinking big” when approaching an index. The indexer should think of the point or agenda of the book (the metatopic) and consider the table of contents—even before starting to work on the index.

Enid then described her checking procedures in detail, including running computerized checks to fix mechanical errors and manual checks to make sure she has, among other things, used the client’s style, entered author names correctly, checked on en-dashes and the placement of "and."  As a final step, Enid suggested reading the index, looking for certain types of mistakes, including proofreading errors, confusing entries, redundant entries, splits entries, lack of adequate cross-referencing, unmatched double posts, and the occasional need for an explanatory note.

The workshop was replete with details covering how to perform quality checks on your work with the result being a superior index.  Enid’s sense of humor came across in her presentation, and she showed that “polishing” your index does not have to be dull.

From Indexer to Accidental Taxonomist - Heather Hedden (Speaker biography)
Heather began her very interesting talk by explaining that a taxonomy is: a hierarchical structure of subject terms which may or may not have cross-references from synonyms.  Taxonomies support consistent indexing with the same terms used for the same topics, so that multiple indexers, over time, can achieve consistent results.  Taxonomies are useful for a number of information-retrieval systems including databases, websites, intranets, document management/records management systems, museum catalogs, and periodical indexes.  Taxonomists come from many backgrounds, and the reasons people become (accidental) taxonomists are varied as well.

Heather pointed out the similarities between back-of-the-book indexing and thesaurus creation—both the indexer and the taxonomist need to determine what is important, create index entries, and present multiple points of entry.  However, a taxonomist must create a hierarchical structure different from a back-of-the-book index. In a thesaurus, narrower terms are specific instances of the generic term and part terms of a whole-type term.

Heather’s book, The Accidental Taxonomist, is published by Information Today, and can be ordered via their website.

—    Submitted by Linda Dunn

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