Ten chapter members came together for an informal virtual gathering led by Program Chair Lisa Sorenson. After brief announcements, we each shared a recent event of importance in our lives, then discussed various questions on indexing. We also discussed ideas for the upcoming Fall meeting.
Announcements
- Alyssa Graybeal is joining PNW’s program committee to help out with our fall meeting planning. Thank you, Alyssa!
- Lisa Sorenson will also be stepping down as Program Chair after the Fall meeting and staying on as co-Treasurer. That means we are looking for a new Program Chair. The primary Program Chair duties are to plan the quarterly virtual meetings and the fall meeting. Program Chair position description here; contact Lisa at sorensonindexing@gmail.com or Elizabeth at elizabeth.bartmess@gmail.com if you are interested.
- Laurel Rush, our Membership Coordinator, is stepping down after the fall meeting to focus on her business. We are very happy to have had Laurel for the time that we did and are looking for someone new to fill the role. Responsibilities include greeting new members and adding them to the mailing list, reaching out to potential members, removing lapsed members who don’t rejoin, and occasionally checking the list of current members against the membership directory. Membership Coordinator position description here; contact Lisa at sorensonindexing@gmail.com or Elizabeth at elizabeth.bartmess@gmail.com if you are interested.
- ASI’s Indexing Playground is August 27th at 10am Pacific. There will be virtual chats for parents, people nearing retirement, and people moving from part-time to full-time indexing, as well as a chat room with no agenda. Jen Weers is also looking for ideas for future Indexing Playgrounds, so if you have any ideas, you can send them to her at president@asindexing.org.
Indexing discussion
- An indexer inquired about Westchester Publishers, who had recently contacted them. Another indexer who had worked with them confirmed that they are a packager and pay less than non-packager publishers, but that it can be worth taking that kind of work early in your career to get experience.
- We discussed whether and how to index pictures in an illustrated children’s book. Indexers generally leaned toward not indexing them or indexing them lightly.
- Another topic of discussion was whether to index all names in scholarly books. Points raised included not indexing names if inside parentheses, and not indexing passing mentions, unless the author insists and is paying you appropriately. For deciding whether something is a passing mention, Fred Leise’s happiness rule was brought up (will the reader be happy with the results if they follow an index entry to that page), as was whether the text says something about the person’s argument or original work, as opposed to just noting what the person talked about. One indexer noted that it’s good to tell authors what you usually do with respect to names since they may not know what indexers typically do, especially if it’s their first book.
- We also discussed indexing process. Some indexers separate a name pass from a regular pass since they find that the names interrupt their processing of the text’s meaning. This segued into a discussion of difficulty shifting out of indexing mode when reading for pleasure or when doing a proofreading pass on the same book.
- Finally, we discussed potential fall meeting topics. Topics suggested included passing mentions; macros; children’s books; and indexing nonstandard material generally.