Many of us have been refreshed by the recent ASI annual conference in Portland, Maine. Whether or not you were able to join us this year, we hope to see you next.
ASI Conference lights the way in Portland, Maine
ASI Award for Excellence in Indexing
Order of the Kohlrabi
ASI members at Society for Scholarly Publishing Conference
Upcoming Chapter Events
Purple Pen Competition for New Indexers
Other News for Indexers—new CMOS and better freelancing
Spotlight—Maxine Henry
ASI Conference lights the way for indexers in Portland, Maine
Keynote speaker Mary Norris
Those interested in networking had plentiful opportunities to greet old friends and make new ones at two evening receptions. During the Friday awards dinner, recipients of the ASI Excellence in Indexing Award, the Hines Award, and the Kohlrabi award were honored.
Special thanks go to our conference chair Kendra Millis, the conference committee members, our conference buddies, and our conference sponsors.
ASI Award for Excellence in Indexing
Richard Genova was awarded the 2017 ASI Excellence in Indexing Award (formerly the Wilson Award than the ASI/EIS Award) for The New Appleman on Insurance Law Library Edition, published by LexisNexis. The New Appleman is a multi-volume set that Rich has been working on for 12 years and includes a 3-volume practice set and a 13-volume comprehensive set. The practice set has one index for the set, updated once a year. The comprehensive set has an index for each volume as well as a cumulative index for all 13 volumes, updated twice a year. The award-winning index encompassed the 3-volume practice set, the 13-volume comprehensive set, and approximately 10 years of a companion newsletter.
The index to this large, technically complex body of material is an excellent tool for both legal professionals and non-specialists. Its navigation aids enable the user to find common threads across many volumes while using conventions that make it easy to navigate. The headnote is repeated on each page, a simple but helpful device in such a large index. “Continued” lines are provided for page and column breaks, and also within complex multi-levels of subheadings where it would otherwise be easy to get lost. This extensive index is impressive for the sheer volume of material it clearly and comprehensively makes accessible to the user.
Rich also earned the 1999 Wilson Award for Brownfields Law and Practice by Michael B. Gerrard, published by Matthew Bender & Co. Inc.
In recognition of The New Appleton Insurance Law Library Edition index, Rich received a $1000 award check and a certificate acknowledging his accomplishment. The publisher, LexisNexis, also received a certificate in recognition of its contribution to the quality of the index.
Order of the Kohlrabi
The efforts of the many volunteers who make ASI successful were recognized at the 2017 conference by inducting them in the Order of the Kohlrabi.
- Kendra Millis for her work on the conference and nominating committees
- Devon Thomas for her work with chapter relations
- Fred Leise for collating the Salary Survey and providing notes and explanations for the Bylaws changes
- Outgoing board members Judi Gibbs and Fred Leise
- AElfwine Mischler for her work as editor of the online newsletter See Also
- Donna Shear for her job as new editor of Key Words
- Charlee Trantino for her work on marketing of the Online Learning programs
- Meghan Brawley for her great job as Training Course Administrator
- Sandi Schroeder as Hines Award chair
- Alexandra Nickerson as Excellence in Indexing Award Chair
- Pilar Wyman for her work with ICRIS
- Heather Hedden for her work as SIG coordinator
- Dave Ream for his work on the Digital Publishing Task Force
- Carol Schoun for her work on the membership committee
- Jennifer Spanier for her work on the Webinar committee
- Webmasters for their excellent work: Larry Harrison, Karen Lane, Jennifer Spanier and Carolyn Weaver
- Lisa DeBoer, Connie Binder, Meghan Brawley, Paul Sweum, Anne Fifer, Maxine Henry, Judy McConville, and Jennifer Spanier for being conference buddies for the 2017 conference
The 2017 Kohlrabi Award recipients, recognized for their contributions to ASI.
ASI members at Society for Scholarly Publishing Conference
ASI members Heather Hedden and David Ream presented on indexing as part of a half-day pre-meeting seminar, organized by Heather, at the annual conference of the Society for Scholarly Publishing in Boston on May 31. In the session entitled “Indexes for Content Findabilty: New Trends and Technologies,” Heather gave a presentation “An Introduction to Indexes, Indexing, and Controlled Vocabularies,” which covered both back-of-the-book and periodical/database indexes and indexing (and mentioned her ASI affiliation). David Ream presented “Beyond Back of the Book Indexes” which gave a good introduction to both embedded indexing and to indexes for digital publications of ebooks and web pages.
Other presenters in this session included self-published philosophy author Bob Doyle of Harvard University, who explained a technique to get original page number locators hyperlinked to original page numbers in reflowable ebooks; two taxonomy managers from EBSCO Information Services, who spoke on how their master thesaurus terms link to terms in thesauri of other publishers to provide access to those third-party periodical index databases; the president of Access Innovations, which provides database indexing services and thesaurus management software, who spoke of issues in creating thesauri; and the chief technology officer of Silverchair Information Systems, which provides automated indexing services, who discussed trends in data mining, machine learning, and artificial intelligence systems.
The audience included publishers of scholarly books and journals, and publishing service companies. The conference exhibitors included some publishing packager firms, so this conference also afforded the opportunity to mention ASI member services to these potential clients. The next Society for Scholarly Publishing conference will be held May 30–June 1, 2018, in Chicago.
Upcoming Chapter Events
Western New York ASI Chapter Luncheon Meeting
Saturday, July 22, 2017, 12–3 p.m.
Rio Tomatlan Restaurant
106 Bemis Street, Canandaigua, NY 14424
Please join us for a luncheon meeting. There is no charge for this meeting, beyond individual costs for lunch. We’ll discuss the recent ASI Annual Conference in Portland, Maine, and updated chapter status information. Frances Lennie will join us and talk about last month’s Society of Indexers’ Oxford Symposium and exhibit on the Book Index at the Bodleian Library.
Please RSVP to Lisa DeBoer by July 20.
Chicago/Great Lakes Lunch Chat
Saturday, August 5, at 11:30 a.m.
Hay Caramba Mexican Restaurant
122 S. Prospect Avenue, Park Ridge, Illinois
The new co-chairs of the Chicago/Great Lakes Chapter, Denise Alberts and Jim Fuhr, had their first officers’ meeting on 20 June. They invite all to an informal lunch chat for members and guests. All are welcome to this informal and convivial event. The discussions cover a wide range of indexing issues and other topics as well. One purpose of the chat will be to discuss options for the fall workshop and they would very much appreciate your input. You are also invited to bring up a topic of interest or concern to you specifically. You can email for more information.
Pacific Northwest Chapter (PNW) Fall Meeting
Come join us in lovely Vancouver, Washington (near the Portland Oregon airport) for the PNW fall conference on September 16. We are featuring Thérèse Shere on indexing cookbooks, Scott Smiley on tax deductions, a discussion of business tips and tricks, a knotty bits session, and speed networking. Come join us!
New to indexing? See if you qualify for the Sherry Smith Award for New Indexers. The deadline for that is August 16.
For more information about the PNW conference, the registration packet, or the Sherry Smith Award, click here and select the Meetings tab, or email Maria Sosnowski.
Gale Rhoades is also giving a Macrex workshop the day before our meeting, if you’re looking for two-birds-with-one-stone.
Purple Pen Competition for New Indexers
As mentioned in the May newsletter, the Institute of Certified Indexers (ICI) is holding its fourth year of competition for newer indexers. The deadline for submissions is July 31, 2017, and rules and details (as well as entry form) can be found at here. The fee remains the same as in the previous year at $39.00.
A winner will be announced in September 2017, and all entries will receive a detailed critique from the panel of certified indexers. The judging process is anonymous.
Any questions should be directed to Enid Zafran.
Other News for Indexers
Chicago Manual of Style update
The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) is being revised, and the 17th edition will be available in September 2017. Check out CMOS Shop Talk for some of the changes in the new edition.
The new hardbound edition will cost $70 from the University of Chicago Press. If you already are a subscriber to the online version, you will automatically have access to the 16th and 17th editions. The 15th edition will no longer be available online, and UCP has notified its subscribers that any notes or bookmarks in the 15th edition should be moved to the 16th edition before August 15. UCP is also offering its subscribers a 50% discount on the new hardcover book if they use the promo code that was sent in an email. Amazon is also offering a discounted price on preorders. If you use CMOS for your indexing or editing work, act now to save on your copy. (Thanks to Donna Shear, editor of Key Words, for sharing this.)
Communication Central Conference
September 15–16, 2017
Rochester, NY
Additional optional workshop on September 17
Communication Central’s 12th annual Be a Better Freelancer® conference will provide two types of presentations for entrepreneurial communicators: tools of the writing, editing, and proofreading, etc., trade (Word, Acrobat, social media and more) and approaches to the freelance lifestyle (finding clients, marketing, pricing, networking and more), with “conceptual” topics (lifestyle, balancing work and family) as well. This is a small conference that is packed with information on running a freelance editorial business. (I’ve attended two of them.)
The deadline for early-bird registration is August 1. There is an additional discount for members of related professional societies, including ASI and other indexing societies. Check out their registration page for more.
Spotlight
Our member in the Spotlight this month: Maxine Henry. If you would like to be in the Spotlight or nominate someone else, contact the See Also editor, Ælfwine Mischler.
I asked Maxine Henry to be in the Spotlight several months ago. She stopped me in the hallway at the recent ASI Conference and promised her answers right away and delivered on her promise the next day.
Where do you live now? Do you share your home with pets or family?
I live in South Carolina, and share my home with two demanding cats, my husband, and my delightful stepdaughter. All of them help me remember to take deep breaths and look for the silver lining.
What is your educational background?
I have two master’s degrees, one in marine science, and the other in library and information science. I also have a bachelor’s in French. Recently I completed a certificate in XML and RDF-Based Systems, and as a result, I am a firm believer in the semantic web and linked data.
Do you have any hobbies, travels, volunteer work, or other interesting things to share?
I am deep into the fiber arts. I crochet, knit, spin, and have even dipped into the dying and weaving side of things. I also enjoy traveling, both inside and outside of the US. Most recently I was in Portland, ME, for the annual ASI conference and loved seeing the city. It was my first time there, and I didn’t want to leave.
I volunteer with a local Role Playing Game (RPG) organization where I help organize play sessions. We use the D&D 5th edition system, and our goal is to encourage an inclusive gaming environment where everyone is welcome and community bonds can be nurtured.
What kind of work did you do before you studied indexing? Are you still doing that or other work in addition to indexing?
Currently I am a middle and high school librarian at a private school, as well as a freelance indexer.
When did you start indexing? When did you join ASI?
I joined ASI about 5 years ago, and started to build my indexing portfolio in the summer of 2016.
For you, what is the best advantage of ASI membership?
The best part of being in ASI is the other members. I have met some wonderful people who have been so very encouraging. I definitely wouldn’t be where I am now without them.
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