The American Society for Indexing (ASI) is now calling for presentations for its 2009 annual conference. If you are working on an interesting project or doing innovative research in indexing, search engines, information architecture, taxonomies, thesauri, or information analysis, we'd like to hear from you!

TOPICS: ASI members have wide-ranging interests and we attract attendees at all sorts of skill levels, so we're open to any sort of relevant proposal. But we're particularly interested in the following areas for 2009:

• Small-scale but perennial conundrums indexers face: How do you decide whether a note is indexable or not? When is it appropriate to pick up names? How should one handle illustrative material? We're planning on holding a half-day series of short sessions on such detail-oriented problems. If you are interested in this program but would like to see a list of potential topics which you might address, contact Kate Mertes at kmertes@hotmail.com, directly.


• Interfacing with publishers, editors, authors, copyeditors, and proofreaders: We all have to work with other publishing professionals, and sometimes it seems as if our goals are at odds with each other. How can we do a better job? If you have an interesting case study or a scheme for coordinating aims and activities, we'd all like to know about it. Contributions from non-indexers would be especially welcome.


• New technologies: Indexing daily requires additional technical savvy. Embedding is currently a major growth area for indexers, and problems with tools and ensuring the quality of embedded products are big concerns. But other new technologies are just over the horizon, offering new opportunities for indexers, and we'd welcome any proposed papers on such topics, including e-book indexing, natural language search correlation, etc.
  
• Expanding horizons: Twenty years ago, the specter of fully-searchable text made some indexers worry that their skills would become obsolete. Instead, indexers were able to take advantage of the new electronic frontiers, and have indeed expanded their job descriptions. What other arrows can we add to our quivers, traditional (teaching, consulting) or high-tech (taxonomies, search engines, Website design)? Any proposals regarding new areas of expertise to which indexing skills can be applied would be of interest to us.
  
• Subject specialties: Another way of expanding our horizons is to look at new subject specialties. Do you see a big future in, say, house and garden publications? Do these books have special needs that indexers may not be aware of? We especially encourage SIGs (special interest groups) to sponsor subject specialty seminars.
  
• Indexing experts: One of the best things a professional society can do is maintain an institutional memory of skill and expertise. If you're an indexing expert, if you've been doing this a very long time and you've never recorded or passed on your process, we'd like to provide a forum for doing so.

FORMATS: Not every session has to be a half-day workshop. This year we're particularly interested in short sessions, as short as 30 to 45 minutes, on small but knotty problems. But we're also very willing to have 90 minute and 3 hour sessions and day-long sessions. Presentations may also be in lecture format, run as a workshop, a breakout, a panel presentation, or any combination you can envision. We'd also like to encourage poster presentations, to be displayed in our public meeting area.

HOW DO I SUBMIT A PROPOSAL? Use the online submission form. Proposals will be evaluated as they are submitted. All submissions are due by October 20, 2008.

QUESTIONS? Contact Kate Mertes, 2009 Annual Conference Program Chair, at conference@asindexing.org.

2010: Minneapolis, MN, May 12–15. Marriott Minneapolis City Center Hotel

2008: Denver, CO, April 30–May 3. See the 40th Annual Meeting page for program information.

2007: Philadelphia, PA, May 23–26. See the 39th Annual Meeting page for program information.

2006: Toronto, ON, Canada, June 15–17, jointly sponsored by ASI and IASC/SCAD. See the 38th Annual Meeting page for program information.

2005: Pasadena, CA, May 12–14. See the 37th Annual Meeting page for program information.

2004: Alexandria, VA, May 13–15. See the 36th Annual Meeting page for program information.

View PowerPoint slides from general sessions:

• "Keynote Presentation" by Gary Price
• "The NLM Indexing Initiative" by Alan R. Aronson (299 KB)
• "Enterprise Taxonomies—Context, Structures and Integration" by Denise A.D. Bedford (1 MB)
• "Semantic Integration—IRS Tax Map" by Dave Brown (1.5 MB)

2003: Vancouver, BC, Canada, June 19–21. See the 35th Annual Meeting page.

2002: Galveston, TX, Moody Gardens Hotel, May 16–May 19, 2002. See the 34th Annual Meeting page.

2001: ASI's 33rd Annual Conference was held May 31–June 3, 2001, at the Park Plaza hotel in Boston, MA. For program information, see the conference brochure page.

2000: ASI's 32nd Annual Conference was held May 10–13, 2000, at the Sheraton Old Town in Albuquerque, NM. For program information, see the General Sessions page.

1999: The conference "Racing into the Millennium" was held June 9–13, 1999, at the Union Station Crowne Plaza in downtown Indianapolis, IN. For program information, see the 31st Annual Meeting conference highlights. 

1998: The conference "New Frontiers in Indexing" was held May 13–16, 1998, in Seattle, Washington (USA). For program information, see the 30th Annual Meeting section. 

1997: The American Society of Indexers held its 29th Annual Meeting at the Hawthorne Inn & Conference Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, May 15–17, 1997. Click here for some notes on the conference. 

1996: In May 1996, the American Society of Indexers (ASI) 28th Annual Meeting was held in Denver Colorado at the Executive Towers Inn. 

1995: Meeting in Montreal (June).

1994: Meeting in San Diego (May)

1993: Meeting in Alexandria, VA (May)—near Washington, DC

1992: Meeting in San Antonio (May)

1991: Meeting in Minneapolis (June)

1990: Meeting in Chicago (June)

1989: Meeting in San Francisco (May)

1988: Meeting in New York City (May)

1987: Meeting in New York City (May)

1986: Meeting in New York City (June)

1985: Meeting in Philadelphia (April)

1984: Meeting in Washington, DC (May)

1983: Meeting in New York City (May)

1978: Meeting in Washington, DC

1976: Meeting in Chicago

Don't forget that our chapters have regular meetings also, which gives you a chance to meet indexers in your locale. 

To provide information or make a suggestion, send email to webmaster@asindexing.org
Home	A–Z  Index	News	About ASI	Indexing   Information	Indexing   Resources
	Annual   Meetings	Letters from   ASI's President	Chapters	Special Interest Groups  (SIGS)	Web Site  Policy