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Article written by Pierke Bosschieter, The Indexer, October 2006. |
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Back-of-the-book indexing in the Netherlands today In this article Pierke Bosschieter describes the results of her investigations into the state of back-of-the-book indexing in The Netherlands today, and reports both the dire state in which she finds it but also some promising signs for the future. ‘If an index is included in the book no one pays it any attention. If you leave the index out, the complete academic community rises against you.’ (A publisher’s comment to the author.) Introduction Setting out to collect material for this essay, I interviewed several publishers, editors, authors, teachers and software developers in the first few months of 2006. In addition I badgered a lot of people for information by e-mail and telephone. The material thus acquired has found its way into this article. My aim was to interview people with different backgrounds in publishing and with varying perspectives, but this article is in no way pretending to be all-embracing. The information I turned up goes back to the nineties. To delve deeper was beyond the scope of this article. The Theory To have a solid frame of reference before setting out on the interviews I had to ascertain if there already existed a body of publications about indexing in the Netherlands. In the course of my investigation it became apparent that there has been little research into the use and compilation of indexes apart from a period in the mid nineties when there was a sudden flux of publications on the subject. This interest was kindled by Michaël Steehouder, an associate professor at the University of Twente, who at the time was studying the methods adopted by computer users for seeking information. One aspect he focused on in his investigations was the use of indexes in computer manuals. His first publication in 1994, ‘Zoeken in een register’ (‘Searching in an index’), described research into the search behavior of index users. The surprising outcome of this research was that information in run-on indexes is faster accessed than in indexes with indented sub-entries. The theory behind this was that as soon as an index user has found the main heading of his choice, he starts scanning the sub-entries from top to bottom, instead of using the ordering taxonomy. Steehouder’s publication triggered other researchers into publishing on the subject. Their articles were all published between 1994 and 2002 and looked at indexes from the angle of the technical writer. A follow up to ‘Zoeken in een register’ was published in 2002 by Herman van der Meij. Again, according to van der Meij, when people are engaged in a search in which keyword and entry are identical, the run-on index yields the best performance. A flush right style, indented sub-entries with locators at the right-hand margin of the column, with leader dots to prevent line switching, yields the best performance for more complex search tasks as compared to run-in or indented style. Another direct result of this interest in indexes in the mid nineties was the appearance of Monique de Koning’s Eureka! Handleiding voor het samenstellen van registers (‘Eureka! Manual for the compiling of indexes’). This is a concise introduction to indexing, comprehensible and accessible, and dealing with all the main issues in indexing. De Koning drew on the Chicago Manual of Style and books by Nancy Mulvany, Linda Fetters, Ruth Cross and Larry Bonura. As for depth, it is comparable to Fetters’ Handbook of Indexing Techniques. Unfortunately Eureka! is long since out of print, its publisher having ceased to exist following a merger with one of the largest publishing houses in the Netherlands. Despite my best efforts, I have failed to trace de Koning. But it was Eureka! which drew my attention to the fact that there existed a Dutch standard for indexes for documentation. This standard, NEN 3547, was published in 1981 and withdrawn in 2001. Since then the official standard is the ISO 999. Whereas ISO 999 has 32 pages and an extensive index, NEN 3547 had only 4 pages and no index. Consequently it only provided very basic rules for indexing and was compiled for use by ‘authors, editors and publishers’. There is no mention of professional indexers. |
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References:
Diepeveen, Caroline (2006) Indexes in continental Europe, an overview The Indexer 25(2) Fassbender, Jochen (2006) Some observations on German indexing The Indexer 25(2)
Fetters, Linda (1999) Handbook of Indexing Techniques Corpus Christi:FimCo Books
Horst, P.J. van der (1993) Redactiewijzer Den Haag: Sdu Uitgevers
Koning, Monique de (1999) Eureka! Handleiding voor het samenstellen van registers Alphen aan de Rijn: Samsom
Koninklijke Bibliotheek (National Library of the Netherlands)(2006:
Meij, Herman van der (2002) Styling the index: is it time for a change? Journal of Information Science 28 (3)
NEN 3547 (1981) Documentation – Index on a publication
Steehouder, Michaël et al (1994) Zoeken in een register Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing 16 (4)
Vroegindeweij, Lydia (2005) Handboek Redactie: Het organiseren van publicaties Den Haag: Sdu Uitgevers |
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Conclusion Although most Dutch publishers are aware of the fact that an index is a marvellous tool for the reader to get access to the information within a book, they usually opt for a names index only. Subject indexes are rare and usually made by the author in cooperation with the editor. The quality of these indexes is generally poor, to say the least. I think this is caused partly by the alarming fact that most authors, editors and publishers don’t know anything about indexing in general and are unaware of just how challenging a task it is. They are not aware of the ISO 999 standard, of the easy availability of lists of professional indexers, of SI and other courses or of the fact that indexing is a profession with recognized standards and qualifications such as the SI accreditation and fellowship arrangements.
What was really uplifting is that most publishers were pleasantly surprised when I told them about the existence of indexing societies and the pool of experience, knowledge and skills they stand for. Some of them were also interested in the recently founded NIN and would think about employing a professional trained indexer in future, when a book warranted the inclusion of a sound subject index. One interviewee enquired about the possibility of NIN offering workshops to provide editors and publishers with general knowledge about indexing. One also expressed interest in English and American indexing courses for some of her editors.
There still is a long way to go to raise the awareness of publishers about the need for quality indexing. The NIN could play an active role in this, by giving workshops, putting more information on its website and seeking more publicity for its craft.
A thank you to all the interviewees who helped me shape this article. My special thanks to Lydia Vroegindeweij and Michaël Steehouder who both were exceptionally generous with there time and very forthcoming in answering my questions. |
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The Interviews When selecting publishers for my interviews I made a point of including some of the companies with a poor standard in indexing. Unfortunately, but telling, these were the very ones that declined to cooperate. The outcome of the interviews seemed to underline the sad picture that Lydia Vroegindeweij painted about the making of indexes. Only a small number of publishers both see the need for a quality index and also use qualified professional indexers. The other publishers and editors I interviewed all recognized the importance of an index for scholarly books. Predominantly they thought that indexing is nothing more than a clerical task that involves simply extracting ‘important’ words from the text and putting them in alphabetical order. In general, indexes are produced by the authors themselves, by the editor or by a secretary or office clerk. None of the interviewees was acquainted with the Society of Indexers or the other indexing societies, the ISO 999 standard, the book by Monique de Koning, specialized indexing software, courses in indexing, or that indexing in the English speaking part of the world is a science and as such is taken far more seriously than in The Netherlands. On the other hand most interviewees were convinced that indexes are an important tool for giving the reader better access to information. The publishers I spoke to thought that indexing would gain in importance in the next few years because of innovative developments regarding the Internet. E-books, publishing on demand, and offering online content came up in these discussions. As the market for Dutch books is very small, indexing is simply not cost-effective for Dutch publishers and financial reasons for not including an index were very often aired. As I’m not competent to differentiate between real financial reasons and using financial reasons as a cover for indifference towards including an index, I refrain from comment on this. When books with indexes are translated from English to Dutch, the index is usually translated by the translator or the editor. In only a very few instances is the English index discarded altogether and no index provided for the Dutch edition. A large number of English-language books are published in The Netherlands particularly by some of the most prestigious publishing houses like Brill & Van Gorkum and the university presses. The university presses usually leave the compiling of the indexes to the author for two reasons, one financial, the other a perception amongst publishers (and authors) that the subject matter of these books is so highly specialized that nobody except the author is capable of preparing the index . On the other hand there is the widespread notion that indexing is a boring clerical task, that needs no intelligent input. Therefore publishers in the Netherlands have an almost total trust in computer generated indexes. One of these software packages, TExtract, was reviewed in The Indexer of October 2005. I’m afraid that in the hands of an author who hasn’t any basic knowledge about indexing, the software will produce the bad indexes I encountered in my bookshop exploration. On the other hand, the designer of the program, Harry Bego, assured me that the program was also used by professional indexers. Maybe in the hands of a professional it could be a useful tool to help with the making of an index. |
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The Actual Practice To establish what actually is the general practice when it comes to indexing in The Netherlands, I turned to the recent publishers’ manual: Handboek Redactie (Vroegindeweij. 2005), a real tome of a book (487 pages), that reflects the accumulated knowledge of thirty years working in the Dutch publishing trade. The book is widely used by publishers and editors alike and replaces the older and less detailed Redactiewijzer (Van Der Horst. 2004) which had been in print since 1993. Redactiewijzer has a page and a half devoted to the subject of the index. It starts by saying that books, novels excluded, are more accessible if they have an index. A subject index is preferred above separate names indexes. It states that indexes are usually compiled by the author who should highlight in the text the words he wants in the index and put them on an index card, adding the page number. It is the job of the editor to put the cards in order and to add synonyms (ie cross references). If the author is unable to make the index, the editor must do the job himself, with the recommendation to let the author correct the finished results. The rest of the paragraph on indexing deals with typographical issues. Handboek Redactie devotes a similar amount of space to indexes, but because it leaves out typographical issues, is more detailed on substantive indexing matters. Vroegindeweij differentiates between three different ways of compiling indexes:
· Manual mark-up: the author is asked to mark the keywords on a hard copy version of the proofs. The editor compiles the index using this information, adding the page numbers at the final proof stage. · Semi-automatically: the author or editor makes a digital list of terms that ought to be included in the index. Page numbers are entered automatically by matching the digital list of terms with the digital text. Less important locators are removed by hand. Automatically: the author uses the indexing features in his word processor programme to mark the concepts in his text which are to be included in the index. Page numbers, once known, are generated automatically. Quality and Quantity Caroline Diepeveen found that about 50% of non-fiction books in the Netherlands have an index. An afternoon spent in an academic bookshop revealed that back-of-the-book indexes are mainly names indexes (despite the recommendation in Redactiewijzer). If there is a subject index it is usually separate from the names index. A more detailed look at the quality of the subject indexes showed that the majority were poor. Some of the most noticeable defects were: Long strings of locators Too general or vague a choice of main headings A failure of the index to reflect sufficiently the content of the book as a whole Indexes for complex books consisting only of main headings Too short an index for the complexity of the content of the book |
