Blog

11/20/2022

5 Reasons to Hire a Professional Indexer

Finally, you can see the finish line. You’ve spent months if not years writing your book, sent it through multiple rounds of editing, from the developmental to copyediting, and now it’s in the final stage of proofreading before being sent to the printer. All that’s left is to review the proofs and append that index.…
8/27/2024

Evaluate an Index in 6 Steps

27 August 2024 You hired a professional indexer, and now they’ve done the job and sent the index back to you. It’s a good idea to look it over to make sure the index does what you want it to, but how do you know if the indexing is succeeding? Here are some basic steps… Read…
8/20/2024

The Art of Connection

20 August 2024 This article first appeared in Key Words, the journal of the American Society for Indexing (vol. 32, no. 2, Summer 2024). Over May 31–June 1, 2024, the Indexing Society of Canada/Société canadienne d’indexation (ISC/SCI) held its virtual conference, The Art Connection. Things kicked off for the over 100 registrants on Thursday, May… Read…
8/13/2024

Eisner Award

13 August 2024 I am so excited to learn that J. Andrew Deman, a former colleague of mine and a friend, has just won the Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work! The book he won for is The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men (University of Texas Press) and it’s a very deserved win.… Read…
8/6/2024

Alphabetizing Polish

06 August 2024 Last week I looked at alphabetization in Czech. Polish is comparatively simpler, as you don’t have to remember which diacritics affect the sort and which don’t. Of course, you do have to keep straight which order the three z‘s go in. In the Polish alphabet all letters are sorted individually when alphabetizing.… Read…
7/30/2024

Alphabetizing Czech

30 July 2024 I’ve been away from blogging for a while, so to dip back into it here’s a handy reference if you ever find yourself working with Czech terms or names. For indexing, there are two things to know about the Czech alphabet. First, the alphabet for the purpose of sorting is as follows… Read…
4/23/2024

The Superheroes of Indexing and Editing

23 April 2024 Back in February I mentioned some of the dad jokes in funerary services books, such as undead Wolverine’s alter-ego Cadaverine. Today I am continuing to fill out my indexing and editing superhero team with a new mini-team: the Logistikons. Doesn’t that sound like a team of heroes from an 1980s Saturday-morning cartoon… Read…
4/16/2024

Conference Review: Berlin 2022

Review of the Continental Connections international indexing conference held in Berlin, Germany, in October 2022, from the perspective of one there in person.
4/11/2024

TIL: Medieval Names

11 April 2024 As a medievalist and as someone who’s written an article about medieval names, I thought myself pretty well versed in the various ways people referred to each other throughout the European Middle Ages, whether in Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or pagan communities. I was wrong. You know how people have the habit of… Read…
4/3/2024

Of Mice and Indexers

3 April 2024 For the past month+, I’ve had limited use of my right (dominant) arm. This has led to my purchase of a programmable mouse. In truth, it’s a gaming mouse, but I have repurposed it for productivity. When I first got it, I reached out to the editing and indexing communities, asking how… Read…
3/26/2024

Devil Muppets

26 March 2024 Somewhere, long ago, I encountered the theory that delusions are culturally constructed and coded. No one had a Napoleon complex before Bonaparte; no one thought they were Jesus before Christianity had permeated their society; ancient Greek conspiracy-theorists were not convinced that the Truth about little grey men was Out There. That our… Read…