Why Do I Need an Index?
By Barbara Malpass
"You work is impressive
If facts can be found in a second while interest is flexing
But with facts hard to find
You may lose a keen mind
So remember, you do need indexing."
Would people really throw away books that do not include an index? Well, they
do. Every time they put a book back on the shelf because there is no index, that
is what they're doing: throwing it away.
This is very sad when you think of the time and effort the author
spent collecting all the material in the book, the heart's blood that has flowed
to put words on paper. As an author, you must convince the paying public that they're
getting almost everything they need in your book. Although some may read the
book for entertainment or a mild information buzz, the busy seeker of knowledge
on that subject will not have time to work through it. Book reviewers will say,
“This is a great book, very informative, very well written-- but, what a pity it
doesn't have an index.”
The function of an index is to provide an efficient means of tracing
information. According to historian and experienced researcher Dr. Margot Harker,
time is a major issue for researchers and the time needed to unravel what she
calls “a complex narrative or information structure” is simply not available
without an index to use as a series of guideposts.
She compares a book without an index to a museum or gallery without labels and
signs. It is very interesting but the user cannot get anything back from the
visit. Harker also believes that knowing that an index will be compiled may help
the author highlight major and minor themes. Because one of the responsibilities
of the indexer is to sit-in for the user, the unknowing stranger, it may be
difficult for an author to return to this “new” position. Because of this, a
real “stranger” is probably the best option for this part of the work.
The factor of speed is accompanied by a factor of bulk: information bulk. For
teachers as well as researchers there is always too much information. As
students move through school from age group to age group the greatest service
teachers can offer them is to provide skills they will need for a lifetime of
learning. These include the ability to hunt for information, to search out the
great number of differing viewpoints, to compare, contrast, and seek out the
truth. This requires a confident and experienced approach to catalogs and
indexes and the availability of such resources.
The first level of searching-- catalogs listing non-fiction material for
purchase-- will
advise whether or not an index is included in a particular work. For a
librarian judging between possible purchases, the inclusion of an index may be
the deciding factor.
The international community of indexers discusses two kinds of indexes: the
back-of-book index and the database index. Along with the library catalog, they
produce three levels of information depth.
The back-of-book index covers every page of a book at the proof-copy stage.
Subjects and concepts are noted and relationships are established between terms
used.
Database indexing
refers to materials such as articles and academic papers. The preparation of an
abstract will often be required. For a large database, such as a medical
collection, a controlled vocabulary (thesaurus) is created to ensure the continuity of relationships between entries.
The library catalog
lists the book or journal, along with the details of author and publisher,
number of pages, size, illustrations, etc.
Coming along fast on the outside is a third branch of the indexing tree: web
indexing.
I think we need to look at web indexing from two angles: how it gets there and
what some of the jargon means.
“How it gets there”
best is the same for all indexing. Best is through an outsider who understands
the technology involved and has that magic something that no machine can have:
imagination. Only this magic (the desired “tap on the shoulder” for all writers)
can produce the tangential connections from topic to topic that provide some
understanding of the needs of the searcher.
One of the problems with indexes on the web is that many are prepared by
authors-- people who “know” rather than people who “want to find out.” There
are programs that help put the ideas in the proper place, but you need skilled
people to recognize the ideas first.
“What does some of
the jargon mean?” Well, here's my struggled take on that:
Metadata is data about the data: Who gathered it together, where they got it
from, and how you can reach it.
A thesaurus is a list of terms where varied articles, abstracts, etc. can be
slotted into a general field of research. Thesauri provide consistency for the
indexer and for the researcher and are needed for business interests, specialist
magazines, and professions. Once you have your thesaurus you can prepare what
lies behind the portal.
A portal is a door, but it can also be a barrier. A portal is the guarded entry
to a collection of data that is put together for a specific purpose. Examples
include: online study, professional organizations, search facilities for
professions, and specific interest serials. Portals let you in only if you have
a special "key," but once you are in you may add material or take away anything you need. It is possible
to enter many sites at a superficial level only to be faced by a portal
(sometimes financial) before you can go any further.
More serious portals seem to be clustering into web rings where there is a
legitimate crossover of interests: e.g. social geography/politics or
history/sociology. (I imagine these as being like the Olympic rings, separate
but connected.)
Sites of interest to people such as hobbyists seem generally open (at least at
this stage). Good indexing would be valuable here, where commerce and searching
meet.
To go further, you may refer to books such as
Website Indexing:
Enhancing Access to Information within Websites by Glenda Browne and
Jonathan Jermey (AusLib Press, 2004) and articles such as C. Korycinski and
A.F. Newell’s piece in The Indexer, “Natural-language processing and
automatic indexing.”
So, what makes up this valuable “outsider,” the indexer? There are endless
lists of requirements, from a sense of grammar and style (but not pedantry)
to an above-average breadth and depth of knowledge. Commentators also point
out that it may be necessary to use “common sense and sound judgment” where
none of the accepted rules apply.
Canberra author and long-time indexer Robert Hislop defines the two essentials
as meticulous accuracy and strong imagination. And one professional journal
notes after a long list of similar needs, “these must be accepted as
combinations of qualities rare in every sense.”
Everyone agrees that indexing is a long and intensive process. The more time
available, the happier the indexer. However, the need to accept the spirit of
“damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” is included in the list of required
characteristics. Many people work hard and put so much of themselves into their
books that it would be a tragedy to waste the results.
Certainly it is a great relief to finish a book or prepare the basis of your
site, but for non-fiction work, this is the end of only the first stage. In
some ways, helping people find and hold the information you have woven together
is a more important and more rewarding task.
---
Heartfelt thanks to Ms. Lynn Farkas (president of the
Australian and New Zealand
Society of Indexers) for what is accurate
in the techno-bit; apologies from me for any mistakes produced by “literary
license.”
A devoted indexer and editor (for more years than can be mentioned in public)
and a recently proclaimed Master of Arts in Writing, Barbara Malpass wants to cry
when she sees miles of information on public and university library shelves that
will never be read because nobody has time to search for the pointers an index
would provide.
