Happy 2018 to everyone! While many of us are having an unusually cold start of the year, at ASI we’re still moving along with activities and planning for the upcoming conference in April. Hope to see you there.
Call for Submissions: Excellence in Indexing Award
2018 Hines Award Call for Nominations
In Memoriam – David K. Ream
SIG News
Indexer Survey Results
2018 Triennial Meeting
Of Interest (NH Laws)
Spotlight—Michele Combs
The ASI Excellence in Indexing Award
Call for Submissions
Are you especially proud of an index you wrote for a book that was published last year? Then consider submitting it for the 2018 ASI Excellence in Indexing Award. Nominations for the award are welcome from indexers or publishers and will be accepted through February 15, 2018.
The ASI Award recognizes the normally anonymous indexers and the publishers who provide high-quality indexes to serve their readers. The indexer of the winning index receives $1,000 from ASI and a citation. The publisher of the book is also recognized with a citation.
Books with a 2017 copyright date, or those with a 2018 copyright date in distribution prior to December 31, 2017, are eligible (proof of distribution date is required). The judges are interested in seeing well typeset indexes that address the text with high standards of index quality, providing the user with easy, excellent access to the material in the book. ASI Award books serve as models for the profession.
Judging criteria, information on the judging process, FAQs, as well as submission guidelines and form are all available here.
The 2018 award will be presented at the Annual Conference of the American Society for Indexing, April 26–28, in Cleveland, Ohio.
If you have specific questions about the eligibility of an index for the award, please email the Registrar at asiregistrar@asindexing.org.
Hines Award Call for Nominations
Call for Nominations for 2018 Hines Award
Deadline is February 17, 2018
ASI’s Theodore C. Hines Award recognizes those who have made exceptional contributions to ASI and to the indexing profession. Hines Award nominees should demonstrate an ongoing commitment to ASI and the indexing profession through service as an officer, board member, or in other leadership roles at the national level or within Chapters and SIGs. Other contributions worthy of note include active participation in national and regional conferences, website management, publications, committees, educational activities, etc.
Note that the Hines judging process is confidential. Nominees should not be informed that they are being nominated; nor should that information be publicly revealed online prior to the judging.
Carolyn Weaver, 2015 Hines recipient, is chair of the Hines Committee. Also serving are Meghan Brawley and Ina Gravitz, 2016 recipient.
For more information on how to nominate someone, see the Hines Nomination page.
In Memoriam – David K. Ream
David K. Ream, an active member of ASI, died suddenly on December 20, 2017, in Cleveland, Ohio. David was the ASI representative and co-chair of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), EPUB3 Indexes Working Group. He gave presentations at many ASI conferences and in webinars, and he is remembered by many indexers for his humor, generosity with his time, and ability to explain technical matters.
David was president of Leverage Technologies, which he founded in 1990, and Leverage Technologies’ chief consultant for publishers. He earned a B.S. in Engineering and an M.S. in Computer Science from Case Western Reserve University. David spent more than 40 years working with publishers in the areas of typesetting design and production, database creation, editorial systems, and electronic publication design and production.
One of David’s earliest assignments (in the mid-seventies) involved creating custom programs to sort legal indexes into locator order and then back into alpha order. Since then he worked on many indexing, abstracting, and thesaurus projects and systems.
He was also a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity and an integral part of many community organizations including the Cleveland International Film Festival, the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland, and Equality Ohio.
His family has set up a memorial wall for him.
The public memorial service will be on Saturday, January 27, 11:00 am to 2:00 pm at Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, Peter B. Lewis Theater, 11610 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, Ohio. The service will include a program celebrating David’s life, opportunities to share memories and stories and a reception.
SIG News
As per the ASI charter agreement, each SIG is to hold an election for the position of manager and possibly other positions before the end of the year. The results are below. SIG membership is available to members of ASI and affiliated organizations. For more information on the SIGs, see Chapters and SIGs. Heather Hedden is the SIG Coordinator.
Here are the SIG managers and other officers (if any):
Many thanks to the outgoing SIG officers, the re-elected ones, and the new ones. Your efforts help keep ASI SIGs going.
Indexer Survey Results
Maureen MacGlashan will retire from her post as the editor in chief of The Indexer, published by the Society of Indexers, at the end of 2018. The publication recently conducted a survey to determine what its readers want in the future. The survey results are available on The Indexer website.
2018 Triennial Meeting
The Triennial International Indexing meeting will be hosted by CSI (China Society of Indexers) this fall in Shanghai, China. Registration on Oct 17 followed by two days meeting on the 18th and 19th. The announcement will be posted on the website of CSI in March.
Indexers from around the world are invited.
Of Interest (NH Laws)
Diana Witt shares this photo of a book she found in an antique shop. Two hundred years of New Hampshire law indexed in just one volume!
Spotlight
The spotlight this month is on Michele Combs, who lives with a menagerie and participates in a Renaissance Festival each year. If you would like to nominate someone to be in the spotlight, or be in it yourself, contact the See Also Editor, Ælfwine Mischler.
Where do you live now? Where are you originally from? Do you share your home with pets or family?
I live in LaFayette, NY, a small town about 10 miles outside Syracuse. My husband and I share our home with 4 cats, 14 snakes, 17 tarantulas, 4 scorpions, and a tank of fish. The cats are ours; everything else is definitely his. We share our neighborhood with deer, turkey, coyotes, a fox, at least one fisher, and a megaton of birds of all sorts.
What is your educational background?
I have a BA in history, an MS in Early Childhood Education, and an MS in Library and Information Science.
Do you have any hobbies, travels, volunteer work, or other interesting things to share?
Like most editors and indexers, I read a lot — most recently The Monk, the grand-daddy of all gothic novels, which I enjoyed enormously. My husband and I always have season tickets to our local Renaissance Festival, so for seven weeks every year we spend our weekends “in garb” (see photo). I do counted cross-stitch (my grandmother taught me when I was a child), I’m an excellent pool player, and I write Harry Potter fanfic.
What kind of work did you do before you studied indexing? Are you still doing that or other work in addition to indexing?
Before I went to library school I worked for Lockheed Martin doing technical documentation for their anti-submarine warfare division. Before that I was a nanny, before that a teacher, and before that a Domino’s pizza delivery driver. Shortly after I graduated from library school in 2004, I got a full-time job at Syracuse University’s Special Collections Research Center (rare books, manuscripts, etc.), where I’m now the Lead Archivist. So I do that as my day job and do freelance indexing and editing on the side.
When did you start indexing? When did you join ASI?
In library school I took a course on indexing and abstracting, which piqued my interest in the profession. (The instructor was Barbara Kwasnik, who was a member of the CNY chapter of ASI for quite a few years.) I think I joined ASI shortly after I took that class. My first paid indexing job was in 2006.
For you, what is the best advantage of ASI membership?
Collegial relationships. I also really enjoy the conferences, though I don’t often get to go. I served a term on the board and that was interesting and very rewarding. I would encourage anyone considering it to take the plunge. You’ll learn a lot!
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