NB4, NB5, whatever: Tricks (and philosophy) for indexing

["Theron F Schlabach" <theronfs@nospam.goshen.edu>]

Greetings:

Today I was looking back through some of last summer's exchanges among
Notabenerei and noticed one about page-proof indexing with NB4.5.  I've
done quite a bit of indexing with NB3 and NB4 versions.  I think my
comments must apply to NBW also, although I have not yet tried it for
indexing.  In any case, here are some tips and some thoughts.

(My comments assume a separate file for each chapter, but my readers can
probably adapt them to other applications.)

Indexing page proofs:

1)  Of course, at the beginning of the chapter, set the NotaBene file's
page to match the first page-proof page of the chapter.

2)  As the NotaBene manuals instruct, set the page length (PL) very long--I
guess the manual suggests PL=500 lines, although I've always found PL=150
to to do the job.  (In any case, the PL has to be long enough to keep Nota
Bene from automatically going to the next page before you insert the
forced-next-page command (PG).

3)  Then, of course, go through and insert PG commands at the exact
locations of page turns in the page proofs.  (Now as NotaBene assigns page
numbers to entries, those numbers will indeed be consistent with the
page-proof pages.)

More general tricks:

In a good index there will be cross references (See also... , etc.),
appearing at the sub-entry or the sub-sub-entry levels .  Let me use "See
also..." as an example.   In the index list you will not want it to appear
at the point of subentry items that begin with S; you will want it to
appear at the end.  So instead of "See also..." make it "zzz1See also...."
If you have something else to appear below it, begin that entry with zzz2.
Etc.  After your index is all assembled, then you can use global changes to
remove the various zzz entries.  You may come up with some more elegant
method, but the principle will be the same:  You need some method to place
some entries at positions other than the place where simple alphabetizing
will put them.

For good indexes, simply do not depend only on flagging items that appear
literally in the text.  If you do that, your computer will act like a
mindless human indexer who knows nothing--and wants to know less--about the
subject matter.  Such a person, and your computer, will look only for words
(e.g., proper names, and maybe a few other designated terms).  Need I say
that a good indexer will do much more?  For instance, a good indexer will
be alert so that in certain contexts when the word "church" appears, he/she
will index that location under the entry "Ecclesiology"--or when the word
"inerrancy" appears, he/she will index it under "Scripture" and perhaps
"Fundamentalism".  (As you might guess, most of my writing and editing has
been in the field of religious history.)  Etc.  No indexer who is merely a
clerk can do this well, nor can a computer--unless somebody has developed
an indexing program that is even more sophisticated than the best
foreign-language translation programs, which so far as I know nobody has.

(My rule is that only the author or else a high-level assistant who has
been thoroughly involved in preparing the manuscript--conceptually as well
as logistically--can make an index  worth the ink.  Sometimes an editor or
some staff member at a publishing house who has worked with many
manuscripts in the same field can do it fairly well, but probably not as
well as the author should be able to do it.  Problem is, many authors will
not do it well either.  Some seem not to have thought through what it takes
to have a really good index.  And it seems that by the time they get to the
index stage, many authors are thoroughly tired of their projects and just
want to get the manuscripts off their desks.  I've found, in fact, that
compiling a good index takes roughly as long as writing a chapter.  But
when has a reviewer or a hiring committee ever paid attention to the
quality of the index?  Yet, what a tragedy--indeed how silly--it is to do
all the tough work of research and writing and then not make the material
fully available to the book's users!)

P.S.  I write all of this, but have to confess that the index of a recent
book with my name on it is not up to the standards I've just laid out.
Before I quite knew what was happening the publisher by-passed me in making
the index.  By the time I realized what was happening the publication
schedule was so far along I could hardly intervene.  Someone seemed to
think that today's gee-whiz technology would assure that the index would be
a good product.  Well, it didn't, and I've gotten some complaint.  I'm
sorry.  All I can say is, I'm not responsible--despite my name on the book
as editor.

Theron F. Schlabach



Theron F. Schlabach, Prof. of History
Goshen College, Goshen IN 46526
Home: 1305 S. 8th St., Goshen IN 46526
Use home telephone:  219/533-2280
Fax: 219/535-7445
e-mail:
  from off-campus: theron@nospam.goshen.edu
  on-Goshen-campus: theronfs

May God grant peace.