36th Annual Conference

American Society of Indexers
An Indexing Odyssey:
From Core Competencies to Future Visions
Alexandria, VA — May 13–15, 2004

Schedule at a Glance

Thursday, May 13, 2004

7:30am–7:30pm Registration
7:30am–8:30am Continental Breakfast (for WS attendees)
Pre-Conference Workshops (Separate registration required.)

8:30am–12:00pm Workshop 1 — Introduction Legal Indexing
8:30am–5:00pm Workshop 2 — Thesaurus Workshop
8:30am–5:00pm Workshop 3 — Basic Indexing
10:15am–10:30am Morning Refreshment Break
12:00pm–1:30pm Lunch Break — On Your Own
1:30pm–5:30pm Workshop 2 & 3 con't
1:30pm–5:00pm Workshop 4 — Health Sciences Indexing
3:00pm–6:45pm Exhibit Area Open
3:00pm–3:15pm Afternoon Refreshment Break
6:00pm–6:45pm Welcome Reception
6:45pm–8:45pm Opening Conference Dinner and Award Ceremony
9:00pm–11:00pm DC Monuments Bus Tour (Separate registration required.)

Friday, May 14, 2004

7:00am–6:00pm Registration
7:00am–8:00am Continental Breakfast
8:00am–9:00am Breakout Session 1 — The Glory & Nothing of a Name
8:00am–9:00am Breakout Session 2 — Indexing Children's Books
8:00am–9:00am Breakout Session 3 — Business Models
9:00am–7:00pm Exhibit Area Open
9:00am–10:00am Poster Session

Poster 1—Oklahoma Periodicals
Poster 2—Translating English To Foreign Indexes
Poster 3—Wilson Award Overview
Poster 4—Indexing and Vocabulary Development
Poster 5—Library Schools and Indexing Education
Poster 6—Glossary Index: Website Design
9:00am–10:00am Morning Refreshment Break
10:00am–11:30am Breakout Session 4 — Peer Review—Doing It Well
10:00am–11:30am Breakout Session 5 — Editing Subentries
10:00am–11:30am Breakout Session 6 — Programmatic Aids for Indexers
12:00pm–1:30pm Lunch and Keynote Speaker — Gary Price
2:00pm–3:30pm Breakout Session 7 — Tips From CINDEX Users
2:00pm–5:15pm Breakout Session 8 — XML Tagging
2:00pm–5:15pm Breakout Session 9 — Microsoft Products for Indexers
3:30pm–3:45pm Afternoon Refreshment Break
3:45pm–5:15pm Breakout Session 10 — Index Comparison Project
5:15pm–5:45pm ASI Business Meeting
6:00pm–7:00pm Reception in Exhibit Area

Saturday, May 15, 2004

7:30am–5:00pm Registration
7:30am–8:30am Breakfast
8:00am–12:00pm Exhibit Area Open
8:30am–9:30am Plenary Session 1 — Enterprise-wide Taxonomies
9:45am–10:45am Plenary Session 2 — The NLM Indexing Initiative
11:00am–12:00pm Plenary Session 3 — Semantic Integration — IRS Tax Map
12:00pm–1:30pm Lunch
Post-Conference Workshops (Separate registration required.)

1:30pm–5:00pm Workshop 5 — Why Buy Macrex?
1:30pm–5:00pm Workshop 6 — SKY Index Professional
1:30pm–5:00pm Workshop 7 — Content & Structure in Book Indexing
1:30pm–5:00pm Workshop 8 — CINDEX Savvy
Contact Information:

American Society of Indexers
(480) 245-6750
Fax: (480) 777-9270
www.asindexing.org
gwen@asindexing.org

WELCOME

An Indexing Odyssey: From Core Competencies to Future Visions
Alexandria, VA
May 13–15, 2004

This year's conference has something for all levels and types of indexers as well as for publishers, editors, librarians, web architects, and information professionals. For those new to the field, learn how to index and how to use indexing software. For those seeking to expand into two of the more specialized and popular areas of indexing, take a workshop devoted to either legal or medical indexing. For those who work with controlled vocabularies or are interested in taxonomies for electronic products, take the thesaurus workshop and attend the general sessions on websites. And, for insights into the business of indexing, the fine-tuning of indexing entries, the methods of indexing required by publishers for embedding entries, and much more, we have a day of breakout sessions. Also for the first time, the conference will include poster sessions. We have six this year on a variety of educational topics.

Our featured speaker at Friday's luncheon is Gary Price, the editor and compiler of The ResourceShelf (www.resourceshelf.com). Gary was honored by the Special Libraries Association in 2002 with the Innovations in Technology Award and in 2004 by the Library of Congress as one of their Library Luminaries. He has spoken and published on the Web and online resources, how they work, what happens behind the scenes, and the latest breaking developments. Guaranteed to be an informative speaker that you won't want to miss!

Sign up early to make sure you get the workshops you want! And make sure to book your hotel room as we have limited space at this great rate! Take this opportunity to visit the nation's Capital area. Old Town Alexandria is just a short Metro ride into D.C. and all its museums, sites, and restaurants. And Old Town itself is full of historic architecture, early Americana, with little shops and a wide variety of restaurants lining its picturesque streets. From the hotel take a stroll down to the banks of the Potomac and tour the Torpedo Factory, the gallery of more than two dozen artists and craftspeople. We have a great meeting planned and we hope to see you there!

Enid L. Zafran
ASI President-Elect
Annual Meeting Program Chair

View Presentations from general sessions:

Meeting HighlightsSpecial Events

Welcome Reception and Conference Dinner

A Welcome Reception kicks off our Indexing Odyssey Conference on Thursday, May 13, followed by dinner and the Hines and ASI/Wilson Awards ceremony. All attendees are cordially invited. Additional tickets may be purchased for guests.

Exhibits Area

The Exhibits Area will be open on Thursday May 13, 3PM–6:45PM, Friday, May 14, 9AM–7PM and Saturday, May 15, 8AM–12 noon. ASI's publisher ITI will be on hand to sell publications related to indexing.

Annual Business Meeting

The bylaws require that ASI hold an annual business meeting, at which reports of the Board of Directors, auditors, and treasurer are made, the election results announced, and the floor open for the general business of the society. This year's business meeting will be on Friday, May 14, from 5:15PM–5:45PM. This meeting is open to all ASI members free of charge.

Keynote Speaker

We are very excited this year to have Gary Price as the featured speaker at Friday's lunch. He will give us insights into the workings of search engines, the newest types of online resources and how they use indexing transparent to the users, and how professional searchers approach the Web world.You may just want to bring pad and paper to get it all down! For more background on Gary, see his listing in the Speaker Biographies section of the program.

Meeting Overview

Hotel Reservations

The conference hotel is the Hilton Alexandria located in Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia. We've negotiated a rate of $139 single/double occupancy per night (plus applicable taxes) for the conference period, an excellent value for this city. To make your reservations, contact the Hilton Alexandria Old Town at (800) HILTONS (toll-free). Please identify yourself as an ASI/American Society of Indexers meeting attendee to receive the discounted rate. The hotel reservation deadline for our room block is April 12, 2004; rooms will be on a space available basis after that date. There are several city-wide events going on in the DC area during this popular time of year. Don't delay, make your reservations today to avoid not getting a room and the hotel selling out! For a description of the hotel visit www.hilton.com.

Travel Assistance

If you need assistance with travel arrangements, contact Gail at Preferred Travel Services at (800) 848-6864 (toll-free) or (303) 298-7050, Monday–Friday, 8:00AM–6:00PM (MT). Please identify yourself as an ASI Meeting attendee.

Food and Drink

As part of the registration fee, conference attendees will receive dinner on Thursday, continental breakfast (pastries, coffee, and juice) on Friday and full breakfast on Saturday, lunch on Friday and Saturday, as well as morning and afternoon refreshment breaks each day.Additional dinner and lunch tickets may be purchased for persons accompanying attendees.

DC Monuments Tour

This is a great opportunity to see the DC monuments at night. The tour is two hours long with a guided lecture. Stops at the Jefferson, Lincoln, Vietnam, Korean, and FDR Memorials are included in addition to driving by U.S. Capitol, Library of Congress, House and Senate Office Building, Federal Triangle, Penn Ave., the White House, Capitol, and Capitol Reflecting Pool. Even if you have seen these spots during the day, they are impressive to view again by special lighting at night.
The tour bus will depart from and return to the conference hotel. The trip will be held on Thursday night, May 14, 2004, from 9PM to 11PM Price $20/person. Space is limited so sign up early!

Thursday, May 13, 2004

Pre-Conference Workshops (Separate registration required.)

All Day Workshops

7:30am–8:30am

Continental Breakfast (For workshop attendees only.)

8:30am–5:00pm

THESAURUS WORKSHOP
Bella Haas Weinberg
Thesaurus Design for Semantic Information Management is a full-day workshop that introduces the design of controlled vocabularies for indexing and searching. Topics to be covered include semantic relationships, thesaurus format, screen display, and the conversion of the cross-references of frequently revised books to thesaurus structure. There will be a hands-on exercise during the workshop. Computer-assisted techniques of thesaurus development and natural language search strategies will be discussed (but not demonstrated).

8:30am–5:00pm

BASIC INDEXING
Kay Schlembach
Career change, beginning indexer, or refresher? Novices, inexperienced indexers, and folks needing an effective review will value this opportunity to build, renew, and reinforce their fundamental skills. This FAST-PACED introduction to classic back-of-the-book indexing techniques covers key concepts such as term selection, entries, cross-references, names, alphabetization, layout, and simple editing. Post-workshop follow-up included. The workshop is a full day.

Half Day Workshops

8:30am–12:00pm

INTRODUCTION TO LEGAL INDEXING
Mary Ann Chulick
Introduction to Legal Indexing is designed for general indexers who are interested in branching out into legal indexing, or indexers who have done one type of legal indexing and would like to try another type. The various types of material that legal indexers encounter (bills, statutes, text, forms, and caselaw) will be discussed with focus on standards and unique problems with each type. The students will be given short exercises that allow hands-on training. The presenter will also furnish handouts, which outline all relevant information.

10:15am–10:30am

Morning Refreshment Break (For workshop attendees only.)

12:00pm–1:30pm

Lunch Break (On your own.)

1:30pm–5:00pm

HEALTH SCIENCES INDEXING
Carolyn Weaver
Health Sciences Indexing encompasses everything from research-level medicine to consumer health information, and disciplines as diverse as clinical medicine, dentistry, genetics, plastic surgery, hospital administration, and veterinary medicine. This hands-on workshop will explore the tools, resources, and skills needed for this unique indexing field, with a special focus on journal indexing as a market niche. Attention will be given to medical terminology, Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and PubMed as indexing resources, and different indexing styles for different audiences.

3:00pm–3:15pm

Afternoon Refreshment Break (For workshop attendees only.)

Opening Conference Events

3:00pm–6:45pm

Exhibit Area Open

6:00pm–6:45pm

Welcome Reception

6:45pm–8:45pm

Opening Conference Dinner and Award Ceremony
Presentation of the ASI/H. W. Wilson Award for Excellence in Indexing and the Hines Award for Service to ASI.

9:00pm–11:00pm

DC Monuments Bus Tour
See Meeting Highlights for description.

Friday, May 14, 2004

7:00am–8:00am

Continental Breakfast

8:00am–9:00am

Morning Breakout Sessions

THE GLORY & NOTHING OF A NAME
Noeline Bridge

Most names are straightforward and easily formed into index entries. However, the ones that aren't, can consume a great deal of time, and incur frustration. I have divided names into several categories of difficulty, and will illustrate each of these with many examples from my own recent indexes and common questions, along with names in the news (candidates for future indexes). The emphasis will be on problem solving, using readily available sources of help.
INDEXING CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Barbara DeGennaro

Indexing books for children has undeniable appeal and its own satisfactions—but how do you begin? In this session you will learn the differences between indexing children's publications versus adult publications. You will be guided through the world of children's books and the publishing industry. Discussion will focus on the various age groups and the impact of educational and instructional standards on these groups. Last, but not least, we will discuss how and where to locate the right publishers and market your services.
BUSINESS MODELS
Moderator: Maria Coughlin; Panelist: Fred Leise, Alexandra Nickerson, and Deborah Patton
A panel of experienced indexers will discuss business models for indexers: full-time freelancer, part-time freelancer, in-house indexer, and moonlighter, as well as strategies for expanding an indexing business into related fields, like thesaurus design and information architecture.

9:00am–10:00am

Poster Session and Refreshment Break
Poster Session coordinated by Nancy Zibman

POSTER 1 — OKLAHOMA PERIODICALS
Janet Ahrberg
Users trying to find information, especially timely information, about a particular state lack needed and affordable indexes. Four library faculty members at Oklahoma State University (OSU) met this challenge to improve access to Oklahoma publications by creating a free, in-house, Web-searchable index with financial assistance from grants. This poster highlights the development and implementation of the Oklahoma Periodicals Index at OSU.

 

POSTER 2 — TRANSLATING ENGLISH TO FOREIGN INDEXES
Peter Rooney
The presenter was engaged to create an index to a trilingual guide for immigrants. The index was first written in English. After the guide was translated into Spanish and Chinese versions, the English-language index was translated, repaginated, alphabetized and styled to create usable indexes in those languages. The translation was done by a translation company, and the reformatting of the indexes was done by the author. Various surprising variations on the repagination task surfaced in the course of this project.
Poster 3 — WILSON AWARD — AN OVERVIEW
Janet Perlman
This Wilson Award poster will provide basic information about the Wilson Award, the criteria used for judging, and a list of past winning books and their indexers.
POSTER 4 — INDEXING AND VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT
Susan Kelsch
Indexing and thesaurus development are long-standing topics of discussion in library and information science graduate programs. However, these have taken on new importance with the emergence of document processing techniques and the ongoing debate about the use of the Internet in retrieving and delivering information. This poster will identify university researchers and projects that focus on indexing and thesaurus construction.
POSTER 5 — LIBRARY SCIENCE SCHOOLS AND INDEXING EDUCATION
Heather Williamson
Presented by: Kay Schlembach
This poster will present the current state of indexing and abstracting education that is being provided by library schools accredited by the American Library Association. The number of schools, the number of students that take the courses offered, and the frequency of the classes offered will be discussed. The indexing course content will be examined for coverage, the books and other reading materials assigned, and final products produced. The course syllabus will be compared to find the themes that are common in teaching this subject. This material will then be used as part of the final report to the Association for recommendations on indexing education.
POSTER 6 — GLOSSARY INDEX: WEBSITE DESIGN
Colleen DiPaul and Mary Feldman
This poster displays a glossary index entry with footnote hyperlinks to "inside the book" for use on a Website.

9:00am–7:00pm

Exhibit Area Open

10:00am–11:30am

Morning Breakout Sessions

PEER REVIEW—DOING IT WELL
Martha Osgood
This session is meant for any indexer who has yearned for constructive feedback from other indexers. Indexers will be offered tools to positively critique indexes. Participating in the peer review process is intended to build self-confidence and improve indexing skills. The Peer Review session will also offer easy to use methods to take back to regional indexing groups. A side benefit of the session is that we will share a little of how indexers look at their own indexes in the editing phase. Class method: Sample indexes will be provided. Presenter will lead the audience through a typical peer review session and will demonstrate useful review techniques. The audience will then form small groups in which these techniques can be practiced.
A DIALOGUE ON EDITING SUBENTRIES
Margie Towery and Kate Mertes
Two well-respected expert indexers will first discuss their approaches to editing indexes and then closely examine subentries. Their primary discussion will focus on editing indexes for good, better, and best subentries. By comparing a batch of subentries in pre-edit, other indexer's edit, and actual indexer's final edit, they will illustrate their approaches to creating useful, concise, appropriate, and readable subheadings.
PROGRAMMATIC AIDS FOR INDEXERS: DOCUMENT COMPARISON
Marc Natale
A new (Web-based) document comparison tool, NuCompare, will be introduced. With NuCompare, the user has the ability to compare newly revised documents to the original version. Other program features will include: batch comparison, keyword/phrase search, substitution lists, time/money savings factors, and practical applications.

12:00pm–1:30pm

LUNCH AND KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Gary Price, editor and compiler of The Resource Shelf (www.resourceshelf.com)

2:00pm–3:30pm

Afternoon Breakout Session

TIPS FROM CINDEX USERS
Moderator: Naomi Linzer; Panelist: Larry Harrison, Deborah Patton, Carol Roberts, Scott Smiley
A panel of CINDEX users will present options that they use to enter and edit indexes with maximum efficiency. The panel, will field questions and suggestions about CINDEX for both Mac and Windows. Questions and solutions on how to save time and energy are welcome from the audience, in addition to those from the panel.

2:00pm–5:15pm

Afternoon Breakout Sessions

XML TAGGING
Mary Coe, Ken Karpinski and Richard Shrout
Cambridge University Press and other publishers are asking indexers to use an XML tagging process, which involves creating XML locators to be embedded into text instead of using page numbers. What exactly does this mean, and how exactly is it done? Join us for an explanation and a hands-on lesson. We welcome publishers and indexers interested in learning about this topic as well as those who are already using this process. We will discuss how XML tagging may be changing the way we index. The session will be led by Ken Karpinski, a project manager at TechBooks, and by Richard Shrout and Mary Coe, freelance indexers.
MICROSOFT PRODUCTS FOR INDEXERS
Gale Rhoades
This program explores Windows, Word, and Excel tips and tricks focused on the needs of indexers. Learn to make changes in the way your computer works so that it really saves you time! Learn to modify the operating system (Windows) and the Microsoft applications (Word and Excel) so they add productivity to your business. When should you use keyboard shortcuts and when is the mouse a greater timesaver? Should you upgrade or stay with the software you have? How do you select a new printer? What should you look for when buying a new computer? These and many other questions will be discussed in this session.

3:30pm–3:45pm

Refreshment Break

3:45pm–5:15pm

Afternoon Breakout Session

INDEX COMPARISON PROJECT
Cheryl Landes and Nancy Donnelly
This is the continuation of a project Debra Spidal and Cheryl Landes presented last year at the ASI conference in Vancouver. This year, the project explores whether diverse backgrounds affect how indexers create entries for an academic book.

5:15pm–5:45pm

ASI Business Meeting

6:00pm–7:00pm

Reception in Exhibit Area

Saturday, May 15, 2004

7:30am–8:30am

Breakfast

8:00am–12:00pm

Exhibit Area Open

8:30am–9:30am

Plenary Session

ENTERPRISE-WIDE TAXONOMIES
Denise Bedford
The World Bank will share its experience working with and harmonizing different types of taxonomies to create an enterprise-wide logical and physical taxonomy architecture. We'll also look at how this approach can help you to manage your content, while still maintaining the flexibility you need to integrate future advances in information technology.

9:45am–10:45am

Plenary Session

THE NLM INDEXING INITIATIVE
Alan Aronson
The Indexing Initiative project investigates techniques for the automatic selection of subject headings for use in both semi-automated and fully automated indexing environments at NLM. Team members have developed an indexing system, Medical Text Indexer (MTI), which is in regular use by NLM indexers as they produce MEDLINE indexing. In addition, the indexing terms produced by MTI are being used as keywords to access collections of meetings abstracts via the NLM Gateway. Besides making improvements to MTI based on indexer requests, we are focusing on two research projects: a system extension to handle the full text of articles rather than just titles and abstracts and a word sense disambiguation (WSD) effort to improve indexing accuracy.

11:00am–12:00pm

Plenary Session

SEMANTIC INTEGRATION—IRS TAX MAP
Dave Brown
Semantic integration and the Semantic Web is the next wave in Internet technologies. The IRS has developed a prototype to demonstrate the benefits of semantic technologies in tax law research using index terms as a method to integrate information together. This session will include a brief overview of semantic technologies; a case study of how IRS Tax Map was developed; and, a demo of this state-of-the-art tool.

12:00pm–1:30pm

Lunch

Post-Conference Workshops (Separate registration required.)

1:30pm–5:00pm

WHY BUY MACREX?
Gale Rhoades
Exhibition of Macrex functions and features. This is your chance to discover the value of Macrex. This workshop is aimed at those who do not yet own Macrex; separate activities are planned for those who already own the software. Attendees will be given a free demo (on CD) which includes 90 days of technical support.

1:30pm–5:00pm

SKY INDEX PROFESSIONAL
Kamm Schreiner
This workshop will start by covering the basics of using SKY Index Professional and will progress to discussions and examples of advanced techniques for increasing indexing efficiency. Topics covered will include: data entry; editing; program and index configuration; index generation and printing; basic, and advanced, search and replace; scanning an index for errors; spell checking; advanced editing; creating and using groups; using pattern matching; using macros, acronyms and translations; advanced index configuration.

1:30pm–5:00pm

CONTENT & STRUCTURE IN BOOK INDEXING
Do Mi Stauber
This participatory workshop focuses on the practical processes of indexing, with examples and hands-on exercises from real texts and indexes. We will survey the steps that indexers follow in back-of-the-book indexing as we interpret texts and create index structures for both scholarly books and textbooks in the social sciences and humanities. Not a basic introduction to indexing, but novices as well as experienced indexers will benefit. Subjects included: main topics, indexable topics, subheadings, cross-references, double-posting, and wording. Updated as of 2004, based on Do Mi's newly published book.

1:30pm–5:00pm

CINDEX SAVVY
Marie Young
This workshop will enhance your creative use of CINDEX by focusing on the more advanced features and functions available. Specifically, we will explore how to segregate, select, and view your index data and demonstrate the most efficient way to edit your index. You will learn the powerful use of "pattern matching" as well as the best approach to reusing data from existing indexes (i.e., emulating structure and style of the existing index or gleaning data from it to create a new index). Geared toward intermediate to advanced CINDEX for Windows users, but Macintosh users of the program will benefit too and are very welcome to attend.

Speaker Biographies

AHRBERG, JANET
Oklahoma Periodicals
Janet H. Ahrberg is an Assistant Professor/Cataloging Librarian at the Oklahoma State University Library. She served as Chair and Secretary of the Oklahoma Library Association's Technical Services Roundtable. She received her MLIS from the University of Oklahoma.
ARONSON, ALAN
The NLM Indexing Initiative
Dr. Alan R. Aronson is a computer scientist at the National Library of Medicine. He is a member of the Natural Language Systems (NLS) program whose major goal is to enhance access to biomedical information through the application of techniques from the fields of computational linguistics, artificial intelligence (AI), and information retrieval (IR). Dr. Aronson's MetaMap program maps biomedical text to the UMLS Metathesaurus and forms the basis for one of the most successful indexing methods used to automatically generate recommended indexing terms for biomedical text.
BEDFORD, DENISE
Enterprise-wide Taxonomies
Denise Bedford is the Thesaurus Project Manager in the Information Solutions Group at the World Bank. She teaches Information Systems at Catholic University of America's School of Library and Information Science. Denise holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan, an M.S. in Librarianship from Western Michigan University, and a Ph.D. in Information Science from University of California.
BRIDGE, NOELINE
The Glory & Nothing of a Name
Noeline Bridge was a library cataloger for over 10 years, wrestling daily with forms of names. Since going freelance, names have continued to fascinate her. She is a past president of the Indexing and Abstracting Society of Canada, and is now the society's international liaison officer.
BROWN, DAVID C.
Semantic Integration - IRS Tax Map
David Brown has worked in electronic publishing at IRS since 1987. In the early 1990s, he managed a project to develop a Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) application for automating the Internal Revenue Manual, a 50,000-page loose-leaf directives publication. In 1996, David was invited to join the newly established IRS Digital Daily web site team and was responsible for forms upload processing, and application development. In 2001, David began prototyping use of the Topic Maps standard at IRS. He is currently project manager for IRS Tax Map, a topic maps based electronic research tool for IRS tax law telephone assistors.
CHULICK, MARY ANN G.
Introduction to Legal Indexing
Mary Ann G. Chulick began her professional career as an indexer in 1980 with Banks-Baldwin Law Publishing Company in Cleveland, Ohio. After several company reorganizations and buy-outs, she now works for the Cleveland office of West, a Thomson Company, one of the nation's largest legal publishers. Mary Ann is a graduate of Denison University and holds an M.L.S. from Kent State University.
COE, MARY
XML Tagging
Mary Coe is a freelance back-of-the-book and database indexer. When she can drag herself away from indexing medical journals for the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE database, she works on back-of-the-book projects, including XML-tagged indexes for TechBooks.
COUGHLIN, MARIA
Business Models
Maria Coughlin has been an officer and presenter for ASI and she currently is president of Coughlin Indexing Services, Inc., an indexing business with nine employees.
DEGENNARO, BARBARA
Indexing Children's Books
Barbara DeGennaro is a freelance indexer with fourteen years of experience, and indexing children's books is a major part of her business. Barbara has served as Chair and Immediate-Past Chair from 2002–2004 of the Washington, DC Chapter of ASI. She also served as Director-at-Large for ASI.
DIPAUL, COLLEEN
Glossary Index: Website Design
Colleen DiPaul is both an educator and indexer. She holds in M.A. in Adult-Community Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She is trying her hand at reviewing books as an indexer — "An Indexer's Views and Reviews" is her dream for a website for ASI.
DONNELLY, NANCY
Index Comparison Project
Nancy Donnelly began indexing in an academic environment in 1985, and continued on a part-time basis while an administrator and instructor at the University of Washington and Seattle Community Colleges. In 1996, she began indexing full-time as a contractor at the encyclopedia Encara, where she still indexes part-time. Nancy presently lives in Washington, D.C. She has a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, M.A. from New Mexico State University, and M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington.
FELDMAN, MARY
Glossary Index: Website Design
Mary Feldman is a librarian and indexer. She holds a Post Masters in Library Science.
HARRISON, LARRY
Tips from CINDEX Users
Larry Harrison became a freelance indexer in 1992 after more than 20 years' industrial experience in computer software design and development. Larry was a beta tester for CINDEX for Macintosh and has used it for indexing ever since. He specializes in indexing technical books and catalogs, and has also indexed Mayo Clinic's consumer health books and newsletters for the past several years.
KARPINSKI, KENNETH
XML Tagging
Kenneth Karpinski is a Project Manager at Techbooks in Fairfax, VA. He works on books for Cambridge University Press and journals for Kluwer Academic Publishers. He is the author of The Winners' Style (Acropolis), Red Socks Don't Work (Impact Publications),Mistakes Men Make That Women Hate (1997, Impact Publication), Mistakes Men Make That Women Hate (2003, Capital Books), andWall Street Speak (Capital Books).
KELSCH, SUSAN
Indexing and Vocabulary Development
Susan Kelsch started her indexing and vocabulary development career in 1993, working on staff at Information Access Company and the Gale Group. In 2002, she left private industry to enroll in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois. She completed her master's degree in August 2003.
LANDES, CHERYL
Index Comparison Project
Cheryl Landes has more than 12 years of experience as an indexer and a technical writer in a wide variety of industries. Currently she works full-time as a technical writer for Phoenix Controls Corporation in Acton, Massachusetts. Cheryl's education includes two bachelor's degrees: in journalism from the University of Oregon in Eugene and in general studies, from Eastern Oregon University in La Grande; she also has a certificate in Microcomputers and Networks from the University of Washington in Seattle. In January 2004, she graduated from the Graduate Certificate for Technologies in Education (CTE) program at Harvard University.
LEISE, FRED
Business Models
Fred Leise is an information architect/metadata designer/indexer with experience as a full-time freelancer, on-site consultant, and in-house indexer/information architect.
LINZER, NAOMI
Tips from CINDEX Users
Naomi Linzer established J. Naomi Linzer Indexing Services in 1999. She has been using CINDEX for Macintosh for almost five years to create indexes for scholarly and text books in the social sciences.
MERTES, KATE
A Dialogue on Editing Subentries
Kate Mertes is sole proprietor of Mertes Editorial Services. Since 1998, she has provided indexing, information retrieval, and editorial expertise for complex, challenging projects in law and the humanities. Kate took her B.A. in medieval studies, a Ph.D. in medieval history, and a post-doctoral degree in theology, and after teaching at university level for several years, moved into publishing with a stint at Oxford English Dictionaries. She worked nine years as a managing editor of indexing with Research Institute of America. Kate has served on the ASI Board since 1998, and is immediate past president of ASI and a founding fellow of the Consortium of Indexing Professionals.
NATALE, MARC
Programmatic Aids for Indexers: Document Comparison
Marc Natale joined Matthew Bender as an Index Editor in 2001. Among his work in the practice areas of real estate and environmental law, he is responsible for such indices as: Brownfields Law & Practice (Wilson Award winner, 1999), Warren's Weed New York Real Property, & Nichols on Eminent Domain. He began his career with the New York County District Attorney's Office as a Paralegal Specialist and liaison to New York State Supreme Court Justice Bud G. Goodman.
NICKERSON, ALEXANDRA
Business Models
Alexandra Nickerson is well known to ASI, having served as the society's president, as a Board member, and as a presenter at numerous local and national ASI meetings as well as many national meetings of writers and editors. Alexandra has been an indexer for decades, and she and her husband Bob have entered the 21st century as a new-fashioned indexing team.
OSGOOD, MARTHA
Peer Review—Doing It Well
Martha Osgood is an eight-year indexing veteran in the scholarly book field with a specialty in the philosophy of religion She developed Novice Notes for people who are investigating the profession of indexing. She was instrumental in founding the Peer Review in Eugene, Oregon. Later, she developed this idea further into a regular Chapter meeting activity and into an online version called IndexPeers on yahoogroups.com.
PATTON, DEBORAH
Business Models
Tips from CINDEX Users
Deborah Patton has served ASI on the local and national level as an officer and she has been a presenter at many local and national meetings of ASI and STC. Since 1994, she has run a full-time freelance one-person indexing business. She has used CINDEX for DOS, for Macintosh, and for Windows.
PERLMAN, JANET
Wilson Award — An Overview
Janet Perlman is an indexer with more than 25 years of experience. Her company, Southwest Indexing, specializes in scientific, medical, and engineering materials, and also provides indexing services for Spanish-language materials. Janet has served ASI as an officer at both state and national levels, and has written and given workshops on indexing.
PRICE, GARY
Keynote Address
Gary Price is a librarian, information research consultant, and writer based in suburban Washington D.C. He earned his Masters of Library and Information Science degree from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He also holds a Bachelors of Arts degree from the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas.

Gary is the editor and compiler of The ResourceShelf (http://www.resourceshelf.com).This daily electronic newsletter is where he posts news and other resources of interest to the online researcher. From a base list of a few hundred, this newsletter now goes to over 12,000 subscribers.

He has also compiled several well-known web research tools including Price's List of Lists and direct search, a compilation of Invisible Web databases.These and other compilations have been mentioned in numerous publications including The Washington Post,The Guardian, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

A frequent speaker at professional and trade conferences, Gary is a contributor to Searcher magazine, and the co-author with Chris Sherman of The Invisible Web, published by CyberAge Books. In January 2003, Price was the Guest Editor of Search Day. In Summer 2002, he received the Innovations in Technology Award from the Special Libraries Association.This year he was chosen by the Library of Congress to speak in its Library Luminaries series.
RHOADES, GALE
Microsoft Products for Indexers
Why Buy Macrex?
Gale Rhoades has worked, since 1981, to make computers more friendly and easier-to-use. As contract IT for small businesses and government agencies around the country (but mainly in the San Francisco Bay Area), she handles everything from networks to handhelds. As a computer consultant for individuals, she is a one-stop source for solutions to hardware and software issues.
ROBERTS, CAROL
Tips from CINDEX Users
Carol Roberts has been indexing for ten years, working primarily on scholarly books in the humanities. She has presented many workshops at ASI's national conferences and for ASI chapters (including CINDEX workshops) and is currently serving on the ASI Board as secretary. Carol has been using CINDEX for Macintosh since its inception.
ROONEY, PETER
Translating English To Foreign Indexes
Peter Rooney has been indexing since the late 1960s, and has been involved in the affairs of ASI since the early 1970s as officer or board member. He is also a software designer, and has devised a proprietary series of programs for back-of-the-book indexing, and for cataloguing of art works (particularly catalogue raisonne).
SCHLEMBACH, KAY
Basic Indexing
Kay Schlembach, after working as a real estate appraiser and home-schooling five gifted children, has been a full-time freelance indexer since 1997. She is currently serving her first term on the ASI Board of Directors. This will be Kay's eighth year as a presenter in the Basic Indexing course.
SCHREINER, KAMM
SKY Index Professional
Kamm Schreiner is the owner of SKY Software and a graduate of Virginia Tech. He is also the programmer for SKY Index Professional. He has been presenting workshops on using SKY Index for most of the annual ASI conferences since SKY Index Professional was released.
SHROUT, RICHARD
XML Tagging
Richard Shrout has indexed books on computer-related subjects for over 10 years. He has served as Secretary and Chair of the DC Chapter of ASI and is currently serving on the national Board of ASI. Prior to retirement from the federal government, Richard served as the Director of Technical Services for a system of federal libraries for over 20 years.
SMILEY, SCOTT
Tips from CINDEX Users
Scott Smiley took the plunge into freelance indexing after completing his doctorate in geography in 1999. Using CINDEX for Macintosh, he indexes books in a wide variety of subjects, including the social sciences, public policy, education, the humanities, environmental studies, and business.
STAUBER, DO MI
Content & Structure in Book Indexing
Do Mi Stauber is the author of Facing the Text: Content and Structure in Book Indexing, and of Jewels in the Cavern: The Special Challenge of Scholarly Indexing. She has been the chair of the judging committee for the Wilson Award for Excellence in Indexing. A full-time back-of -book indexer since 1986, she indexes scholarly books, textbooks, government documents and encyclopedias in all of the social sciences and humanities.
TOWERY, MARGIE
A Dialogue on Editing Subentries
Margie Towery has been in publishing since 1987 and indexing specifically since 1994. She focuses on scholarly indexing. She has served as the president of the Heartland Chapter and been active in the formation and development of ASI's Special Interest Groups. She is the editor of Indexing Specialties: History (1998) and Indexing Specialties: Scholarly (forthcoming). She won the H. W. Wilson Award in 2002 and, more recently, indexed the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed.
WEAVER, CAROLYN
Health Sciences Indexing
Carolyn Weaver, owner of Weaver Indexing Service, Bellevue, Washington, has been a freelance indexer since 1991, specializing in health, behavioral, and social sciences books and journals. She was an academic health sciences librarian (as well as a moonlighting indexer) in Washington, Nebraska, and Illinois, before moving to full-time indexing in 2000. She is a former Treasurer of ASI, current President of the Pacific Northwest Chapter, and Webmaster for the Business Indexing SIG, and has written articles for various ASI publications.
WEINBERG, BELLA HAAS
Thesaurus Workshop
Bella Hass Weinberg chaired the committee of the National Information Standards Organization that developed the revised American National Standard on thesaurus construction, which was published in 1994 and reaffirmed in 1998. She is a Past President of the ASI and the 1998 recipient of its Hines Award. As a Professor in the Division of Library and Information Science at St. John's University, Dr. Weinberg teaches graduate courses on indexing and abstracting, information science, and thesaurus construction. She consults on the design of large-scale indexing and thesaurus projects. She has done research on thesaurus structure, and has published extensively on linguistics and information science.
WILLIAMSON, HEATHER
Library Science Schools and Indexing Education
Heather M. Williamson, M.L.S., is a professional academic librarian. A self-taught, part-time indexer, she became interested in indexing when an advisor pointed out that a core library journal lacked an index. This lack of an index grew into a semester of studying indexing, a professional paper, a year of work for a major library publisher, and a presentation at the ASI conference in 2002.
YOUNG, MARIA SULLIVAN
CINDEX Savvy
Maria Sullivan Young has been an indexer since 1988, after years of combined experience working in libraries and in computer technical support. Shortly after joining the in-house indexing staff at a publishing house, and at about the same time that her employer began incorporating the use of CINDEX into the standard indexing process, she became very actively involved in the technical aspects of her department's operations. When Maria chose to become a freelance indexer in 1994, she began a support role with Indexing Research that continues to this day, providing online technical support and training for CINDEX users, both in groups and one-on-one.

ASI Membership Information

Becoming a member of the American Society of Indexers has many benefits:

  • Easily maintain your awareness of professional issues.
  • Meet others (locally and nationally) involved in the indexing profession.
  • Keep up-to-date through professional workshops.
  • Seize the opportunity to get involved locally by holding a position in your local ASI chapter.

Who Can Join?

Membership in ASI is open to all interested persons: professional indexers, editors, publishers, librarians, and anyone else curious about indexing. ASI also enjoys the support of corporate partners through organizational memberships.

ASI benefits and discounts for individual members:

  • Listing in the ASI Membership directory
  • Optional listing in the Indexer Locator (additional fee)
  • Subscription to Key Words: The Bulletin of the American Society of Indexers
  • Member discounts for advertisements in Key Words
  • Discounted optional subscription to The Indexer: The International Journal of Indexing (additional fee)
  • Member discounts on all ASI publications
  • Member discounts on ASI conferences and workshops, as well as at conferences and workshops hosted by the affiliated international indexing societies
  • And more!

Join online at www.asindexing.org

American Society of Indexers
Voice: (480) 245-6750
Fax: (480) 777-9270
Email: gwen@asindexing.org