Vickie Jacobs
Indexer, Editor, Writer, Librarian.

INDEXING

As a book indexer, I have worked directly with authors as well as publishers. I first became interested in book indexing as a potential career path while working on my Master of Science in Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS). I enrolled in an Indexing and Abstracting course, and my first job after graduating with my MLIS was at a small but well-known non-profit organization in Washington, D.C., the National Security Archive. There, I spent almost seven years as part of a small team of librarians to index, catalog, and abstract declassified government documents to be published via ProQuest in an online database called the Digital National Security Archive (DNSA).

In my role as Cataloging Librarian at the National Security Archive, I was part of a small team of librarians who indexed, cataloged, and abstracted thousands of declassified government documents. We worked together to maintain a thesaurus of DNSA-specific index terms and edited each others’ indexing and abstracting work. All the while, I continued indexing books on a freelance, part-time basis, and accepted a number of book indexing jobs from December 2012 through December 2019.

In 2017 I joined the American Society for Indexing (ASI), a membership which I have maintained. My work for DNSA, using a specialized thesaurus which was developed and adapted specifically for the database, gave me a unique perspective to contrast with the self-contained nature of back-of-the-book indexes.

EDITING & WRITING

As an indexer, whether for books or databases, a natural companion role is that of editor. A common activity for book indexers is to make notes of typographical or stylistic errors which have been overlooked up to that point, and report them to the client. This is something which I have always been careful to do since I am driven to provide the highest quality product possible.

As a Cataloging Librarian for DNSA, my teammates and I regularly exchanged abstracts and index records, to check each others’ work — for stylistic errors as much as for content readability, consistency, and accuracy. It is through that process, which was heavily driven by tight deadlines to create the abstracts and indexing records for thousands of documents to be published as a cohesive set, that I developed a keen critical eye for stylistic inconsistencies and creative writing on a small (word) budget.

Later, I went on to develop and edit one-page ads, bookmarks, flyers, and “factsheet + craft” activities for my duties as Librarian, first for the Oman Library at MEI and later for the Orange County Library System.

I do enjoy writing a lot, so I maintain a Blog that consists of informative posts about indexing theory and practice, and a Substack newsletter, where I keep readers updated with project or event news, double-post the Blog publications, and write generally about indexing, abstracting, and other bookish topics.

REFERENCE LIBRARIAN

While half of my career has been spent indexing, abstracting, and editing, the other half has been spent in some prestigious research library settings. Starting as an undergraduate student, I worked first in the Main Library at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) campus before switching from Main Circulation to work in the more specialized Slavic Library (it was later merged with other special libraries into the International & Area Studies Library). Though I held various roles at the Slavic/IAS Library, the opportunity to work with the librarians in the Reference department, as part of the Slavic Reference Service (SRS), was what drew me in to librarianship.

I was very fortunate to be introduced to reference work by such a unique team of experts and subject specialists. I worked daily to complete challenging InterLibrary Loan (ILL) requests, and responded in a timely manner to detailed reference requests that were obtained through reference interviews. I also worked, independently and as a co-author, to create several (of the many) SRS library research guides, including some that that are not listed but were specially contracted for private use.

All my training and knowledge from the Slavic Library came back to serve me in my role as the Head Librarian of the Middle East Institute’s Oman Library (formerly George Camp Keiser Library), from January 2020 through July 2021. While the decision to leave MEI in July was entirely driven by personal motives, professionally, it was a difficult decision to make. In my role as Head Librarian in a department consisting of me and one part-time librarian, I “wore all the hats.” Among other duties, I regularly created more resource guides and answered reference questions.

Due to the nature of an organization such as MEI, my patrons’ research experience ranged from research novice to seasoned expert, and as a result, I became very attuned to the different needs of people in different stages of their career. My role ran the gamut from helping with literature reviews to citation tracker, and everything in between.

Despite my varied career experience, there is one thing has remained constant, and indeed it seems to be the common thread that unites the seemingly disparate roles of book/database indexer, reference librarian, and cataloger: my passion for helping people locate the information they need as quickly as possible without sacrificing quality, as well as learning about different cultures, their languages, and diplomatic relations.

LANGUAGES

I have studied Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Italian, and Persian. I am fluent in Spanish.

MEMBERSHIPS

• American Society for Indexing (ASI)

• American Copy Editors Society (ACES: The Society for Editing)

• Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA)

• Middle East Librarians Association (MELA)

SOFTWARE

• Adobe (Acrobat Pro, InDesign, Photoshop)

• Content Management Software (Drupal)

• Indexing software - Cindex (for book indexing), CuadraSTAR (database indexing)

• Integrated Library Systems (Sierra; Koha; Voyager)

• Microsoft Suite (Excel, Publisher, Word)

• MySQL and some HTML

Throughout my career, passion for connecting people with the information they seek has been a driving force.

— This connection could happen through indexing, reference & cataloging librarian work, or various writing projects.

GENERAL INTERESTS

I enjoy spending free time with friends and family, training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, going to the beach, reading, astronomy and other space-related things, traveling, and meeting new people and hearing their stories.

My professional “side” interests include: reading about bibliographies, indexes, and thesauri; planning the compilation of bibliographies; and going straight for the index when opening a new (or old) book.

Clients & Products

Please email me for details, examples of past work, or reference contacts.

INSTAGRAM

BLOG