2023 in Review
Indexing
I recently published a Substack and blog post that provided a listing of all the books I indexed in 2023.
The list provides the title/author information of my six published jobs of 2023, links to respective publisher pages with other book information, and brief abstracts of each book. It also includes the four book indexes I have done that are available to view or download on my website, indexes that I completed and am providing as examples of my work.
Professional Development & Conferences
American Society for Indexing (ASI) Courses & Webinars
The course description makes an important point, that “the indexer must understand the conventions pertaining to specific types of artworks and the expectations that clients might have about the indexing of images.”
This is a Webinar that I signed up for in 2023 but it will take place in January 2024. The webinar will explore techniques for improving efficiency in the indexing process as well as describe some little-used tools and functions that even experienced indexers may be unfamiliar with.
Embedded Indexing
One of the indexes available via my website is my first embedded indexing project, for which I used a combination of Cindex, Kerntiff Publishing Systems scripts, and Adobe InDesign, to provide my client with the desired e-book index.
Before starting on this project, I had time to review an ASI Webinar I had previously attended:
In this webinar, Jan Wright provides the intricate details of communicating with clients about file management and project schedules, discusses timelines for embedded indexing work, and provides an overview of what embedding an index involves. She covers critical questions that indexers should ask clients before starting work and discusses some guidance for indexers to provide their clients upon file submission. She also reviews some advantages and drawbacks of embedded indexing.
The webinar itself as well as the handouts, along with the Kerntiff Publishing Systems tools, contributed to the successful completion of the embedded indexing project.
ASI 2023 Conference
Berlin Conference
My second conference of the year was another online one, but this one had the option to attend in person. The International Indexing Conference is held every three years, and if I had planned better, I would have loved to have this opportunity not just to attend in person and meet some of the people I’ve only emailed with, but also to be a tourist in Berlin! Anyway, having the video recordings made available after the fact is a definite silver lining to this new online way of doing conferences…and I have definitely re-watched more than a few sessions.
This two-day event was full of interesting presentations by indexers from around the world, from developments in the publishing industry to indexing series (journals), embedded indexing, and Chinese legal thesaurus creation, there was no shortage of things to learn. View the full program, here.
“The History of Stoplists: Lists of Words Not Indexed,” by Bella Hass Weinberg.
Saturday’s keynote, “Changing Industries From the Inside: Learning from the HarperCollins strike,” by Olga Brudastova.
“New A.I. Tools and Indexing: Do We Welcome Our New Robot Overlords?” by John Magee.
“E-book Indexes: More Than Meets the Eye,” by Mary Coe.
Publications
Abstracting
In March, I published an announcement: I was awarded a contract to be a part-time abstracter for the NCJRS Virtual Library, which provides public access to more than 230,000 documents.
I am very fortunate to have this opportunity, and doubly fortunate that the abstracting work is flexible so I can budget my time appropriately, to allow for other projects that also require focused attention.
Thank You
On January 7 (2022) I announced my new logo on Instagram.