---------Australian Society of Indexers

NEWSLETTERVolume 17, Number 5, June 1993

Stop the Press Holdthe Front Page .The Australian Society of Indexers has anew editor! After 12 months at the helm,Steve Sunter, due to other commitments,has decided to relinquish this challengingtask.

Your new editor is Elizabeth Baratto. Ilook forward to editing this newsletter,judging by past issues, I have my workcut out for me. Steve has done a greatjob in keeping this newsletter factual,accurate, informative and entertaining.

This newsletter is pivotal in promotingthe aims of the Australian Society ofIndexers. I look forward to hearing fromand liaising with members,with regard toindexing related topics and conveyingthese views and information.

Apart from the usual information onregional meetings and workshops, thismonth's issue includes Hans H.Wellisch's follow up article on InvertedHeadings, Subheadings and Functionwords, information on the FederationIndex 1889-1913 and a report on a bookindexing workshop held in New Zealand.

'lucky Steve'

ISSN 0314-3767

ACT News: Region Meeting

Geraldine Triffitt reports on the May 18th'Meet the Indexers' meeting:

This meeting was a chance to meet Back-of-Book indexers. We had a panel ofthree indexers, the author Pat Clarke,scholar and ex-public servant, RobertHyslop, and former librarian, OlgaHowell. These three gave us a variedview of indexing, both in their methodand in the type of material they index.

Pat Clarke described the different waysshe had indexed her books. Her firstbooks, Governesses and ColonialWomen, about a number of women, hadname and place indexes only. However,her book about Louis Atkinson required amuch more complicated index, withcross-references, to reflect variousaspects of her life. Her latest book,Lifelines, an edited collection of women'sletters, written in conjunction with DaleSpender required a detailed index tonames, places, the roles and functions ofthe women, and concepts which wereimplicit in the text

Robert Hyslop, whose latest bookAustralian mandarins, perception oj therole of departmental secretaries has justbeen released, gave some very practicalhints to book indexing.

Olga Howell told some horror storiesof disasters affecting indexes togovernment annual reports and stressedthe need for the indexer to see the finalversion before publication. Asgovernment publishers now want theindex on disk, the indexer must insist thattheir formatting is retained. She usesMicrosoft Word on a Macintosh, whichprovides her with a search facility andspell check. She emphasised the goldenrule of indexing is consistency.

Geradi neTriffl tt

ACT Regional BranchFunctionsThe ACT Branch is organising twofunctions for the following months:A 'Meet the Database Indexers' eveninghas been planned for Tuesday 22 June at5.00 pm at the Griffin Centre, Room 1.And a dinner meeting has been tentativelyplanned for August 24 at the CanberraClub. The speaker is : yet to beannounced.

Canberra Society of EditorsMeeting: ReportThis meeting was held on 28 April,Geraldine Triffitt attended and providedthe following summary:

Members recommended reference booksthey used in editing. Some of these weredictionaries of aspects of English orguides to the usage of the language,others were subject specific. A briefdescription of the works presentedappeared in the latest issue of Th eCanberra Editor. A final list ofrecommended references is beingcompiled.

During the meeting the Society's bookletFreelance editors in Canberra, 1993-94edition was distributed. This is a veryuseful guide to anyone interested inindexing or employing indexers becauseof the overlap between editing andindexing in Canberra.

VIe Meeting:Thesaurus Use andConstruction/DatabaseIndexing and AbstractingworkshopVictorian members please note the flyerenclosed with this newsletter outliningnews about the Thesaurus Use andConstruction Workshop/Database andIndexing for Databases planned for July24.

George Levick and Max McMasterare conducting the workshops and wouldlike to hear from all interested parties.Places are limited so be QUICK.

INDEXERS MEDALThe Australian Society of IndexersMedal is again beingoffered for an "outstanding" index to abook or periodical compiled and firstpublished in Australia or New Zealand.

To be eligible for the award, the indexmust be in print and must have been firstpublished after 1990. It must have beencompiled in Australia or New Zealandeven though the text to which it refersmay have originated elsewhere.

For the award, indexes are judged at thelevel of outstanding professionalachievement, thus sufficient material isrequired, both in quality and quantity, forappraisal. The. index should besubstantial in size - as a guide,comprising a minimum of four pages,double columned. The subject mattershould be complex, requiring generallymore that one category of words/phrasesas index entries. It is requested, ifpossible, to please send a copy of thebook, which will be returned.

All interested persons are invited tonominate up to three indexes which meetthe above criteria, and which they regardas worthy of consideration. Don't bebashful, you can nominate your ownindex!'

Recommendations with bibliographicdetails should be sent to:

The Secretary,Australian Society of Indexers,GPO Box 1251Melbourne, Victoria 3001

as soon as possible, but no later thanFriday 27 August, 1993.

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More on Inverted Headings, Subheadings, and Function Words.

Hans H. Wellisch

We include, in this month's issue, excerptsof Hans H. Wellisch response to Messrs.Siebel and Levick's contributions on thistopic, (AusSI Newsletter vol. 179 no. 1,1993) and (ibid.,no.2, 1993).

Mr Wellisch responds, "I am indeed quite"satisfied" with the phrase "opticalillusions", as expressly stated on p. 43 ofmy book. What I am not satisfied with isthe inversion of this phrase, which shouldbe used in an index only as a cross-reference to the normal syntactic form ofthe phrase. As also stated clearly on p.43,the modifiers always precede the modifiednoun in an English compound term. Thatis the reason why neither main norsubheadings should ever be inverted in anEnglish index. (The exceptions are termsinherited from the Normans in the fields oflaw, diplomacy and heraldry, e.g. attorneygeneral, ambassador extraordinary andplenipotentiary, knight errant, and a fewother such inverted terms that exhibitFrench, not English, syntax. All of them,however, are "in common usage".) Thecomparison of compound terms withpersonal names is a red herring: ever sincethe 15th century, when the custom ofsurnames became a widely acceptedpractice, it was realised that the number ofsurnames vastly exceeded that of modifyingforenames, and that it is therefore moreconvenient to arrange lists of names bysurname rather than by forename. In theWestern world, it is only in Iceland thatlists of personal names (such as the phonebook) are still arranged by forename,because the people there do not havesurnames but patronymics which changefrom generation to generation.

I agree, however, with Mr. Siebel that thewording of BS 3700 "Terms that exist incommon usage" is indeed unfortunatebecause of its vagueness. What is meant(and exemplified) is phrases in which amodifier is often or almost always linked toa noun to express a single concept.Another awkward choice of term in BS3700 is "hierarchy of main andsubheadings" because the example simplyshows an alphabetical arrangement ofsubheadings. The term "hierarchy" refers

to only two entines, namely the mainheading and the complete array ofsubheadings. Mr. Siebel erroneouslyassumed that the subheadings themselveswere somehow meant to be hierarchicallyrelated which, of course, is not the case.

Function wordsSince at the end of Mr. Levick's commentreference was made to my article inKeywords, I would like to explain its titleand to reprint here its conclusions.Function words (a linguistic term) are thoseparts of speech commonly known intraditional grammars as articles,conjunctions and prepositions. They haveno meaning when standing alone, but arenecessary to indicate the function of otherwords and thus to give them meaning.They are therefore not at all "unimportant",least of all in indexes.

Articles are virtually never used as functionwords in subheadings, so they can bedisregarded; among conjunctions, it is only"and" that may occur either at the beginningor in the middle of subheadings (andoccasionally in the middle of set phraseswhen used as main headings, e.g.,"husband and wife", in which case a cross-reference "wives, ~ husband and wife"should be made). The function words thatsometimes give indexers headaches are theprepositions.

Essentially, there are three problemsregarding prepositions in subheadings:when should they be used, where shouldthey be used, and how should they bealphabetised. My recommendations are:(1) Use function words sparingly insubheadings.(2) A subheading that precedes its mainheading syntactically does not need apreposition at the end, unless the modifyingrelationship would otherwise be unclear orambiguous.(3) A subheading that follows its headingsyntactically needs a preposition at thebeginning to clarify the modifyingrelationship.(4) The conjunction "and" shouldpreferably not be used in a subheading.

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(5) Alphabetise all subheadings by theirfirst word.

The last item contradicts the advice given inthe Chicago Manual of Style in section18.51, not to alphabetise prepositions butto file subheadings by "the first importantword", to which section 18.100 adds:

If subheadings are alphabetisedaccording to [J.J1J, in. ut and the like, thereader has to outguess the indexer, soto speak, while searching for terms: thechoice of one such introductory wordover another is often pretty arbitrary.

My quarrel with this is not just a matter ofdivergent opinions. The quoted statementis actually untenable on linguistic grounds,and it also flies in the face of the results ofresearch into the habits of index users. Totake the linguistic argument first: mostprepositions, especially those frequentlyused at the beginning of subheadings, havea unique function, that is, they are notarbitrarily interchangeable. As indicates inwhich capacity someone or something isrelated to the topic of a main heading; illindicates a location; ~ indicates an agent oraction; fuLindicates a purpose; and so on.Only in and .Q.L when indicating apossessive relationship, are sometimesinterchangeable, as in the example I gave inmy book on p. 310 (taken from a popularmedical handbook and here slightlyenlarged):

bowel movementafter childbirth 248in pregnancy 239of babies 266of elderly persons 271

The last two subheadings could as wellhave been

in babiesin elderly persons

However, the "principal" or "important"words following the prepositions are notunique. Quite to the contrary, theenormous richness of the Englishvocabulary that contains synonyms andquasi-synonyms for almost any conceptresults in a high degree of uncertainty onthe part of users regarding the terms thatfollow a preposition in a subheading. Theexample shown above could have beenformulated in any of the followingvariations (synonymous alternatives areseparated by slashes):

bowel movement I defecatingafter childbirth I delivery Iparturition

in I during gestation I maternity Ipregnancyin I of babies I infants I youngchildrenin I of aged I ageing I elderly oldpeople / senescents

Although some of theseterms are less likely to be used than others(depending on the intended audience), theyare all legitimate and possible substitutesfor each other, whereas only in and m andthe less often used d u r i n I: areinterchangeable in this context Hence, "thereader has to outguess the indexer"regarding the so-called "important" words,and not, as the editors of the manual claim,as far as prepositions are concerned.

Regarding index users' habits. anextensive survey. undertaken by INSPEC(the British database on physics. electronicsand computer science) on the use of theindexes to what was then Science Abstractsyielded the following results. Thirtypercent of all users (science librarians,scientists and engineers) scannedsubheadings alphabetically; 24% scannedall initial words; and 63% scanned allsubheadings under a main heading frombeginning to end. which "may be explainedby the user's realisation that a relevantdocument may be indicated by a phrasecontaining terms which he would not havethought of in advance" (Gould, 1974, p.282). (Note that many respondents usedmore than one method of scanning indexentries. so that the percentages exceed100%). Thus. actual research under realconditions and not idle armchair reasoningconfirms the futility of the advice given inthe manual and the importance ofalphabetising prepositions.

This also answers Mr. Siebel's complaintabout my extensive use of the preposition"for" under the main heading "cross-references" and the ensuing "confusion".If a user wants to find those subheadingsthat deal with the purposes of cross-references it is only natural to look forthose subheadings beginning with "for"which is the only suitable prepositionindicating purpose. Users who wishspecifically to find whether cross-references should be made for synonymswill find the answer either scanning thearray of subheadings beginning with "for"or at "synonyms: cross-references for".No confusion whatsoever is generated, and

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users are being served from everyconceivable angle, provided they make theeffort to scan all subheadings under a mainheading--the only way to be sure that nomodification has been missed, regardless ofhow it has been formulated. Of course, youcan only lead a horse to the water, etc.

A corollary to the desirability of scanningall subheadings is that the array ofsubheadings under a main heading shouldnot be too long, so that scanning themwould not take too much time and effort. Ihave addressed this issue in another article(Wellisch, 1993) and proposed a rule ofthumb, namely that subheadings should notoccupy more lines than one half of an indexcolumn. Obviously, it will not always bepossible to obey this rule, and exceptions toit will have to be made, particularly in legalindexes where four, five and moresuccessive levels of sub- and sub-subheadings are not unusual, but iffollowed in most instances, it will ease theburden of the index user in scanningsubheadings, and will also often avoid theunfortunate splitting of subheadingsbetween columns or pages: the shorter thearray of subheadings, the less the risk of itsbeing split

Finally, on a matter of terminology so as togive credit where credit is due. The terms"focus" and "difference" have long beenused by linguists for what in general usageis known as "nouns" and "adjectives" or"modifiers" respectively, in a compoundterm. Derek Austin introduced theselinguistic terms into the vocabulary ofindexing when he explained the theoryunderlying his PRECIS index system, andI only followed his usage in those parts ofmy book that are based on the principles ofsyntactic analysis employed in PRECIS."

Notes:

1. "User preference in publishedindexes. "Journal of theAmerican Society for InformationScience" 25 (1974): 279-286.

2. Wellisch, Hans H. "Subheadings:many are too many?"(in press).

"What You See Is What You Key"The Federation Index 1889·1913

The Victoria Registry of Births, Deaths andMarriages is currently organising the nextstage of its index consolidation programme.This will follow on from the highlysuccessful Victorian Pioneers Index (1837-1888) and will cover births, deaths andmarriages for the period 1889 to 1913. Thetitle of the new index will be the"Federation Index" .

Volunteers to do the data entry for thisimportant index are being sought by boththe Australian Genealogical Institute and theGenealogical Society of Victoria. Thevolunteers will need access to a microfichereader and to a personal computer.

Guidelines. are being issued to eachvolunteer to ensure uniformity in the dataentry process. The crucial phrase for thedata entry is "what you see is what youkey", as the volunteers are required to typein exactly what is written on the microficheindexes. This requirement especiallyapplies to abbreviations in the given namesand place names fields where there is to beno expansion by guesswork of anyabbreviation used in the original indexes.The computer program to be used has beendevised by Bruce Fullarton and containsseveral inbuilt editing features tostandardise the method of data entry and tohelp eliminate errors. For example, theprogram will not accept apostrophes or full-stops, however hyphens will be permittedin the given name, surname and place namefields.

In the field for the registration number onlynumerical characters will be accepted,unless the number concerned has analphabetical suffix, in which case a warningbeep will alert the person keying in the datato double check the number.

If an error is made with the type of dataentered, an error message is displayed onthe screen and no further data can be addeduntil the problem is rectified

Non-alphabetical characters will likewisenot be acceptable in those fields dealingwith names and places. These self-editingfunctions will eliminate time having to bespent "cleaning-up" the data after the initialkeying has been completed and should

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result in a speedier release of the"Federation Index".

Verification of the index entries will becarried out at the Registry of Births, Deathsand Marriages by volunteers usingkeyboard terminals linked to the Registry'sLIFEDATA computer system and checkingeach index entry against the original birth,death or marriage registration details.

As the audit progresses, events that werenever originally indexed and therefore werenot entered during the initial data entryprocess, will be i~cluded in the Registryindex for the first tune.

While it is not possible to preventtypographical errors from being made, thescope for such errors has bee~ markedlyreduced. The fact that every index entrywill be verifted against original registrationdetails should ensure that the resultant"Federation Index" is of the highestpossible integrity.

Any person ~is~ing to volu~teer theirservices for this important project shouldcontact either Eril Wangerek of theAustralian Institute of Genealogical Studiesor Andrew Billinghurst of the GenealogicalSociety of Victoria.

John Scarce,Genealogical Research Officer,Registry of Births, Deaths andMarriages, Victoria.

Teaching Book indexing in NewZealand.

In early 1992 the Society was approachedby the New Zealand Library Association torun a short course in book indexing in NewZealand. No-one in Melbourne wasavailable, so the Executive contacted theNSW Branch. It so happened that at thesame time we had been approached to run asimilar course in Canberra. Alan Walkerand I jointly teach a course at ~e Univer~ityof New South Wales, using teachingmaterials we have developed there. TheUNSW was happy for us to teach theUNSW course in New Zealand andCanberra, and was willing to mak~ thearrangements with their representatives.Since Alan has no marked abhorrence ofCanberra, and I wanted to visit the oldhomeland, we decided that Alan wouldteach in Canberra and I in New Zealand.

After advertising throughout New Zealand,the NZLA decided to run the course onceonly, in Wellington. I made some changesto the teaching material we had dev~loped.atUNSW to incorporate some exercises withNew Zealand examples, and the NZLApersuaded the Northland D.evelopme~tCommission to donate copies of then .promotional booklet Foc~s on Northland touse as a classroom exercise.

The course lasted for three days, fromTuesday 15 September to Thursday 17. Iarrived in Wellington on Saturdayafternoon. I had accommodation at thecourse venue, a pleasant motor lodge inJohnsonville, a downmarket suburb on thefringes of Wellington. C?nSund~~ I wastaken by friends for a delightful VISItto theMartinborough vineyards, not far fromWellington. On Monday I visited the ~Aofftces and met Kaye Lally, the charming,helpful and incredibly efficient ContinuingEducation Officer, who had beeninstrumental in getting the course going.Together we created material to deal withNew Zealand conditions (placenames,different type of government, Maori namesand so on). Kaye told me that they hadattempted to find someone from the LibrarySchool who could teach book indexing, butthat no-one there had enough knowledge.Given that curious fact, it was surprisingthat no-one from the Library Schoolattended the course.

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Twenty-three people attended the course,from all over New Zealand. There wereauthors, librarians, and editors -- seven ofthem from Butterworths! The greatadvantage of such a cross-section meantthat the students were able to learn aconsiderable amount from each other, andask a wide range of questions.

The conditions at the venue were ideal(although its location was inconvenient),and the whole course was superblyorganised. The students were mostappreciative and enthusiastic -- so much sothat I have been invited back to repeat thecourse elsewhere. Evaluation sheetscompleted by the students showed all thesessions were considered "very useful" or"quite useful". I was also also able to spenda few evening catching up on friends that Ihad not seen for many years.

Some comments from the students:"Good balance between instruction andopportunity for participation ... You

LETTERSReview of Copy-editing

In response to the review in the ASINewsletter AprillMay 1993, I should liketo make the following points:

(1) Elizabeth Wood Ellem states that shedoes not know why the index uses pagenumber references and not sectionnumbers. There are many reasons forthis. Mainly I was not asked to use thisstyle by the publisher; also usage ofsection numbers in indexes iscumbersome, lengthy and not veryhelpful - some sections are long and asubject may be difficult to pinpoint in thismanner.

(2) the reviewer's spot-checks actuallyfound what she was looking for. Entriesin indexes are never going to please all ofthe users all of the time. I had used theword 'contents' instead of 'sequence' or'order' as a subheading under'preliminary pages'. There is always thepossibility that Australian usage of somewords may be different in England. Shementions the word 'citations' and'references'. Are these synonyms inAustralia? 'Citations' in copy-editing

made what could have been dullinteresting"

"The course made me think about thingsin a new way, and] really feel as if I'velearnt something"

"I found the course very interesting.Presentation preparation was great.Range of material covered excellent"

"You will now be our "guru" forindexing!"

The evaluation sheets also provided anumber of useful suggestions forimproving the course, not to mention myteaching methods.I am most grateful to Kaye and the NZLAfor the opportunity to "bring the word" toNew Zealand, and to Kaye and to MaureenHenninger of UNSW for organising it allso smoothly.

Michael Wyatt.

parlance normally means 'quotations'(Le. quoting form works). Mentions ofother people's books or articles referringto a section at the end of a chapter etc.,are called 'references'.

(3) there is always argument about theuse of prepositions. Personally, I do notthink that their use in any way detractsfrom an index and in may ways can behelpful. There is no hard and fast rule onthe matter and their omission cansometimes be very misleading.

(4) Finally I should like to point out thatthe previous edition's index won ourSociety's highest award, the WheatleyMedal, but was disliked by many users,Le. copy-editors. This was one of thereasons I tried to make the index fullerand more easily accessible which shouldbe the aim of all indexers.

Michele Clarke

CONFERENCES, Etc.Women in PublishingWIP are holding their 1993 conference onSaturday 10th July at the AustralianMuseum in Sydney. It will provide

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participants with a great chance to meetand network with other women in theindustry.Further information: Robyn Lowe

Ph (02) 692 9087

Australian Book FairThe ABPA Australian Book Fair on June23-27, is already confirmed as a qualityshow. The five days will comprise of anexhibition (over 150 displays), seminarsand an awards dinner. The venue is atthe Sydney convention & ExhibitionCentre, Darling Harbour.

Further information: Sue BlackwellPh (02) 281 9788

Next Deadline·· July 14, 1993

~ News, views and reviews are alwayswelcome. Floppy disks will be, appreciatedwhere articles are longer than one A4 page(preferably 3.5" Macintosh disks; MicrosoftWord software; IBM is also OK).

AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY OFINDEXERS:

GPO Box 1251Melbourne VIe 3001

/

President: IsabelleMentha(03) 418 7201

Vice Pres: George Levick(03) 4187344

Secretary: Ian Odgers(03) 418 7275

Treasurer: Joyce Korn(03) 654 8527(03) 710 1270

Editor: ElizabethBaratto(03) 4187466 Wed 1-5pm

Fax: cI- (03) 419 0459Committee Members:

Max McMaster: (03) 571 6341Cherryl Schauder: (03) 660 3059Mary Long: (03) 8460225John Simkin: (03) 429 8817Josephine McGovern: (03) 596 1555Steve Sunter: (03) 418 7253

NSW BRANCHPO Box R598Royal Exchange SYDNEY, 2000

President: AIan Walker(02) 380 5875

Fax: (02) 361 0651Secretary: Michael Wyatt

(02) 2810460Treasurer: Kingsley Siebel

(02) 4773149Committee: Garry Cousins, Mary Turner,

Lorraine Doyle, Christine Winning

ACT REGION BRANCHGPO Box 2069Canberra ACT 2601

President: GeraldineTriffitt(06) 246 1177

Fax: (06) 249 7310Secretary: Jenni Cole

(06) 243 4211Treasurer: Susan MacDougall

(06) 201 2645Committee: Hilary Kent, Laurel Tunks,

Margaret Hyland, Barbara Dickens

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