Spring is nearly here and we’ve got a spring in our steps as we make the final preparations for the upcoming annual conference. And there’s more happening at the chapter and SIG levels. Read on!
ASI Conference: Beacon by the Bay in Portland, Maine
ASI Webinar: Creating and Securing Your WordPress Website for Marketing Success
ASI Online Learning: Medical Indexing
Excellence in Indexing Award Call for Submissions
Hines Award Call for Nominations
Chapter and SIG News
Spotlight
Software News: SKY Index Pro 8.0 coming soon
ASI Conference: Beacon by the Bay in Portland, Maine
The conference committee is in the final stages of confirming the program for the 2017 ASI annual conference, which will be held in Portland, Maine, from June 15 through June 17.
As in the past, we will be offering an introductory-level class on the first day. We are excited to have Sylvia Coates as this year's instructor. June 16 and 17 will offer two very full days of sessions, with topics including specialty areas, indexing techniques, software for indexers, business issues, the publishing world, and digital and online subjects.
In addition to the sessions, of course, there will be plenty of networking opportunities, two receptions, and an awards banquet. Information about the keynote speaker and the preliminary program and schedule will be posted on the ASI website very soon.
Transportation information and a link to the hotel reservation page are already available, Conference registration will open soon. We look forward to seeing you there!
ASI Webinar: Creating and Securing Your WordPress Website for Marketing Success
A webinar, Creating and Securing Your WordPress Website for Marketing Success, with Joanne Sprott and Rich Hamilton, was held on February 22, 2017. Joanne shared basic content guidelines for pulling in prospective clients and presenting your indexing services and portfolio using WordPress features.
Rich Hamilton covered how to build a WordPress website and protect it from hackers. If you registered for the webinar beforehand, you can download the handouts and watch the replay. If you missed the webinar, you can still purchase the handouts and replay here.
All of ASI’s webinars are available here.
ASI Online Learning: Medical Indexing
Medical Indexing with Dr. Anne Fifer
A three-part course, Medical Indexing, was presented by Anne Fifer, PhD, DO, in January and February. The series was designed to introduce the specialty area of medical indexing for indexers with a medical background, as well as those without one. Learn more about the course and get the replay here.
All of ASI’s online learning courses are available here.
Calling for Excellence in Indexing Award Submissions
Are you especially proud of an index you wrote for a book that was published last year? Then consider submitting it for the 2017 ASI Award for Excellence in Indexing. Nominations for the award are welcome from indexers or publishers and will be accepted through March 31, 2017. 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 certificate. The publisher of the book is also recognized with a certificate.
The judges are interested in seeing indexes that address the text with high standards of index quality and are well-typeset, 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 2017 award will be presented at the Annual Conference of the American Society for Indexing, June 15-17, in Portland, Maine.
Hines Award—Call for Nominations for 2017
Ina Gravitz receives the 2016 Hines Award
from chair Sandi Schroeder.
Nominees should demonstrate an ongoing commitment to ASI through service as an officer, board member, or other leadership roles at the national level or to Chapters and SIGs. Other contributions worthy of note include active participation in national and regional conferences, website management, publications, committees, educational activities, etc.
Rules and procedures for submitting nominations are available on the ASI website here. Note that the Hines judging process is confidential, and that you should not tell anyone that they are being nominated. The award will be presented at the 2017 national conference in Portland, Maine.
Sandi Schroeder, recipient in 2007, is chair of the Hines Award Committee. Also serving are Carolyn Weaver, recipient in 2015, and Martha Osgood, recipient in 2008.
Chapter and SIG News
Golden Gate Chapter Get-Together
Sunday, March 26, 12:00 p.m.
Berkeley, CA
The Golden Gate Chapter will have an informal get-together on Sunday, March 26, at our usual Berkeley meeting place, 1600 Addison (at California Street), in the commons room of Susan Storch’s condo complex. We will meet around noon, eat lunch (free to all comers), and chat for a few hours. A good mix of new and experienced indexers have already committed to come, so we anticipate a lively discussion about all things indexing. For more information, contact goldengate.asi@gmail.com.
Legal Indexing SIG
The Legal Indexing SIG welcomes Leslie Treff as its new Yahoo Group moderator. The SIG is for indexers who are interested in legal indexing and is open to any member of ASI and the other indexing societies worldwide. Learn more at legalindexing.org.
Digital Indexing SIG
The Digital Publications Indexing SIG has a new URL for its website: digital-publications-indexing.org. Please update your links and bookmarks accordingly. A redirect from the old URL, www.web-indexing.org will be in place for one year. The Digital Publications Indexing SIG is still in the process of updating its website for the refocus from web indexing to digital publications. If you would like to contribute content or links to the site, or if you would like to help with redesign, please contact SIG manager Steve Ingle, regardless of whether you are currently a SIG member.
SIG Surveys
Special Interest Group (SIG) Coordinator Heather Hedden conducted a survey of SIG members in December. The results of the individual SIG surveys, as spreadsheet data, are available. Please contact you SIG leaders for a copy if you did not receive it already.
Spotlight
If you would like to nominate someone for the spotlight (or be in it yourself), contact the editor, AElfwine Mischler, at SeeAlsoEditor@asindexing.org.
The Spotlight this month is on Sara Sutler-Cohen. Sara grew up in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, and New York City. She now lives in Novato, just thirty minutes from San Francisco and thirty minutes from wine country, with her husband and his two teens, and a red-furred Maine Coon, named Gimli, Son of Gloin, Cousin of Balin.
Sara has a BA (Mills College) in sociology and journalism, and an MA (Humboldt State University) and PhD (University of California at Santa Cruz) in Sociology, along with a parenthetical notation in American studies with her doctorate.
She has been teaching sociology, ethnic studies, American Indian studies, cultural studies, and American studies in college for nearly fifteen years. She is also a career coach, and much of that work is dedicated to resume and cover letter design. Many of her clients are “recovering academics” looking to find work outside of the classroom. Aside from teaching and career coaching, she does contract work with colleges and universities in curriculum design and professional development workshops for faculty. In addition to all of this, she is working on a certificate for professional editing from the University of California at Berkeley.
When asked about any hobbies, travels, volunteer work, or other interesting things, she replied that she used to play roller derby, and that was likely the most interesting thing she did. She still roller skates when the weather allows it. She volunteered with hospice for a bit before moving to her present county and is eager to do that again. She teaches a class “Death, Dying, and Bereavement” and part of the work she does as a coach is to help people with difficult life transitions. She is in the process of writing a cookbook, turning her dissertation (on new age shamanism) into a book, editing her first novel and a collection of short stories, and working on a research project on touring heavy metal bands. She is about to launch into her second indexing endeavor: Queering the Inferno: Space, Identity, and Kansas City’s Jazz Scene, by Dr. Amber Clifford, which is due out in the fall of this year with University of Nebraska Press.
Sara says that she first heard about indexing as a freelance career a few years ago in a listserv for academics looking for some different work. She says, “I wish now that I had kept in touch with the woman who posted about it because I’d love to thank her. I had no idea that it was something I could do, but even before college, I studied indexes, so it took me all of two seconds—possibly less—to check out ASI and sign up for a membership to begin training.”
Asked what the best thing abot ASI is for her, she replied, “The training has been incredibly helpful. I hope to be able to network more and meet more people in the field. I have fallen completely in love with indexing and find it to be meditative with its demand for detail. I find the webinars and courses outside of the training itself extremely valuable. I’m admittedly a bit green still, and I appreciate the support in this community. A special thanks must go to Theresa Duran for meeting me in a local coffee shop to say hello and avail herself to me as a contact. She was very patient with my questions!”
Software News
SKY Index Pro 8.0 is coming soon
A limited-time public preview of SKY Index Pro 8.0 is coming soon. This will be a fully functional program allowing anyone to try all of the program’s features at no cost. The preview will become available in March or April of 2017. Follow SKY Software on Twitter (@SKYSoftware1) to be notified of the preview’s availability.
SKY Index Pro 8.0 is a major update and contains a multitude of new features and enhancements. One of the more notable new features is native Unicode support including the ability to copy and paste Unicode from other programs. Another new feature that can’t be understated is that the Index Pane which shows a formatted index at all times (was called the Preview Pane in SKY Index Pro 7.0) is now editable at all times using in-place editing. This provides you with two fully editable views of your index at the same time. The Index Pane is always in sorted order and the Grid can be in As Entered, Page Ordered, or Sorted order. There is a demo video on our website of this new feature. The IXML (XML records) format is fully supported for highly accurate exchange of index records between SKY Index and other programs that support the format. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more new features and enhancements.
For more information on the public preview and on the new features of SKY Index Pro 8.0 just visit our website.
Ælfwine Mischler serves as the editor of See Also. Reach her at SeeAlsoEditor@asindexing.org.
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