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Back to Spring 2009 Conference Summary page
Spring 2009 Conference Presentation
Creating Web Site Indexes
Presented by Heather Hedden
Heather’s presentation was thoroughly organized, and despite some technical lags with Internet connection to various example sites, we learned to recognize the basics of HTML coding, software varieties and features, formatting and style choices, back-of-the-book indexing techniques within the web site domain, marketing ideas, and a brief overview of how web indexing relates to larger database and metadata indexing.
Although there are three types of web indexes – back-of-the-book style, database with keyword field, and HTML keyword/search engine combination – Heather focused on back-of-the-book style A-Z indexes.
Instead of locators, the entry term is hypertexted as a link to the page, and often, with anchors, an HTML term, is linked directly to the location on the page.
We saw examples of three types of indexable web site content: book-like documents, entire web sites, and online periodicals.
By clicking View>Page Source in a browser, the fascinating code behind the face of a site appears. Although becoming familiar with basic HTML and style sheets is important, we don’t need to master the code due to several types and combinations of web indexing software.
Information about the differences between search site, site maps, navigation menus, and A-Z indexes appear in some ways similar to the general public’s information about back-of-the book indexes. Having an A-Z index on a site certainly increases usability.
Heather’s workshop gave us a basic groundwork of elements and tools involved in creating web site indexes.
— Submitted by Karen Gracie Kowles
Heather Hedden offers freelance services in book and web site indexing and in taxonomy creation through Hedden Information Management. She previously worked as a taxonomist at the search software developer Viziant and served as an in-house periodical indexer and then senior vocabulary editor at Thomson Gale. Heather teaches online courses in web site indexing and taxonomy creation through the Continuing Education Program of Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science. She has published numerous articles on web site indexing and has recently written a book, Indexing Specialties: Web Sites, for ASI and Information Today, Inc. (2007). Heather was manager of the Web Indexing SIG of ASI from 2005 to 2006 and was president of the New England Chapter of ASI in 2006. She currently serves as manager of the Taxonomies & Controlled Vocabularies SIG of ASI.
Back to Spring 2009 Conference summary page