Busy couple of days with the Society of Indexers conference, online bringing people together from Australia, UK, Europe, US and Canada. Also been out to a talk by the estimable Simon Thurley at the Queen's Chapel, St James's Palace, the interior which we cannot share on social media.
Indexers work on texts they already know a lot about However, it is always salutary to learn about things I don't know anything about (in the context of stuff I do know about). The concept of 'Ancient Death Cafes' is today's, resulting in longreads on Canmore canmore.org.uk/content/canm...
Are you a librarian? Editor? Author? Curious about book indexing but not sure how to get started in the field? Beginning Oct. 7, I am teaching a 6-week course on indexing. Come join me! #librarian#AmEditing#IndexSkylibraryjuiceacademy.com/shop/course/...
Yup, good book indexes are made by trained, experienced, professional human beings. Bad indexes can be made by humans who are not trained, or by machines, which don't have the ability to tailor an index to each unique book.
Tanya raises the issue of the impact of social media algorithms on the success of efforts like this to raise the profile of a small, but vital, professional group. #IndexDay
my wistful reaction to this variation of the joke makes me suspect I missed my true calling
This is what indexes are for - looking up stuff quickly to compile information about a subject and what other people have said about it, or in this case, the late Queen. And I hope that all the books used the proper Elizabeth II, Queen style entry for her maj.
âBrown gathered these insights via a rather âmadâ and âpedanticâ system, which was to look up âQueen Elizabethâ in the index of every 20th and 21st-century book in the London Libraryâs memoir and biography section, and then group them in themes.â www.thetimes.com/article/bc2d...
Yachts, tantrums and horses: the acclaimed biographer Craig Brown reveals what he discovered about the former monarch to write his quirky, honest portrait of her
The latest issue of The Indexer, 42(3), has been published online at www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/journal/index. Read about the Dictionary of Basic Indexingâs Welsh and Japanese entries; indexing Classic Mayan; Picardy book-indexing software; training in creating ebook indexes, and more!
A little reminder that despite the best efforts of your editor, your indexer may be the last person to read your non-fiction book and pick up easily mistyped words that mean something different to the word you intended. I offer you hoards/hordes and navel/naval as examples from my recent work.
There are some other easily mistyped words in this blog post: www.suzannearnold.com/blog/words-t...
Spell check is great â but it canât always recognise when youâve got the wrong word (contact or contract, for example). A look at some common pairs of words that are easily mistyped