Articles by Janet Russell
Watch this space for news of my articles on locators and name authorities in
upcoming American Society For Indexing publications.
Thinking about the H. W. Wilson Award: e.g. Involving the Publisher, Elegance and Perfection
Serving as chair of the 2008 Wilson Award committee gave me the opportunity to think even more about excellence in indexing. I posted this series of reflections on indexing on Index-L, an electronic discussion list for indexers. Since the audience for these postings was my fellow indexers, I often didn’t explain technical terms. If you have questions, please ask.
Subject: RE: [index-l] Wilson Award winner—you could be next
Posted 6/4/07
Doreen wrote:
> Speaking strictly for myself, I'm positive my index for "The
> Intermediate Mechanics of Materials" had "a strong conceptual base,
> with well-developed headings and a solid network of cross references"
> particularly in the section on bars of elastic-perfectly plastic material.
> And I'm quite sure that my index for "Electrochemistry of Zirconia Gas
> Sensors" has "thoughtfully phrased subheadings [with] a narrative flow"
> especially in the section on shaped eutectic composite electrolytes.
Speaking as the incoming chair of the 2008 Wilson committee, I urge you then to submit one of your science indexes for judging. I would love to be able to write a commendation praising your cross references and your subheadings.
I would love to introduce the indexer of a cookbook or a children's book as the next Wilson winner. But, for the most part, scholarly books in the humanities are what are submitted.
The 2007 Wilson committee was well aware of the Wilson's reputation for going to books on arcane topics, but when it came down to the final decision and the selection of an index that could serve as an exemplar of indexing principles, Do Mi's index best demonstrated Elegance.
In the words of the judging sheet, it had "succinctness; the right word in the right place—even if the word isn't found in the text; "a certain charm;" visual appeal; a sense that the index contains exactly what it needs to, no more, no less; simplicity; grace. Elegance is the quality that makes an exceptional index more than the sum of its parts." When I voted for the index, it wasn't just that she had complete cross references or interesting subheadings; it was that, put together, the index was more than the sum of its parts.
Some types of books allow the indexer to stretch her indexing muscles more readily. The control and mastery of language needed to write a one page, 32-line index to a children's book may not show up as easily as the skill needed to write a 32 page index to a technical manual, but saying the children's index cannot be elegant is like saying a sonnet is not a poem. I would still like to see a children's book—or a technical manual—win the Wilson Award. But in the real world, I can't promise. I can promise that if you don't submit, you won't win. And I will ask Do Mi to sit on her hands and let someone else have a chance for a change.
Janet Russell
Winner, 2004 Wilson Award for the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2d edition, revised, which is far less interesting and far less complex than The Self-Possessed.
Chair, 2008 Wilson Award Committee.
Subject: Thinking about the Wilson Award: Involving the publisher
Posted 6/7/07
It’s already time to start thinking about selecting one of your own indexes to submit for the 2008 award. After all, by September 2007 you will be working on books with a 2008 publication date that won’t be eligible until the 2009 judging.
You are writing each index as if it could be a Wilson winner, aren’t you? Or have you decided that Wilson books go mainly to heavy-duty scholarly books on the influence of Icelandic sagas on nuclear physics in Czechoslovakia (with a special commendation on the indexer’s handling of diacritics)? There are books that require only a competent extraction of names or titles, but even a short book like Preschool favorites or Gamers in the Library?, which I indexed recently for the American Library Association can offer complexities that let the indexer shine.
Why should you submit an index for the Wilson award? If you win, you get to be a rock star at the ASI convention in Denver. Editors pay more attention if you have “Winner, H.W. Wilson Award” at the top of your brochure or web site. The recognition of your peers can give you more confidence in yourself and make you a better indexer. The $1000 prize is nice, too.
But the Wilson Award is given jointly to the indexer and the publisher. The publisher only gets a plaque and bragging rights, but their participation is crucial to your index winning the award. Excellent indexes have been sabotaged by poor layout. When you think you have a potential Wilson winner in progress, it’s time to nudge the editor with a reminder that, for example, the long lists of subentries mean that they will have to be extra careful with continuation lines. If you don’t usually see proofs, you might offer to take a look at them. You can do your best to persuade them that the unusual locator arrangement they think is so clever will only confuse readers. (Wilson committees have been known to overlook unusual indexing practices when the overall usefulness of the index is outstanding, but a Wilson Award index is meant to be a model and inspiration to indexers, so it can’t be too weird.)
It may take a while to build a relationship with a client to make them open to your suggestions. You may need to educate a younger editor. We all have our stories of stupid publisher tricks, but overall, there are still a lot of editors out there who want to publish a quality product; they just don’t know the how index fits in yet. If all you can do is get them to publish it as you wrote it, that could be enough.
Janet Russell
Chair, 2008 Wilson Award Committee
Winner, 2004 Wilson Award whose publisher, the American Library Association, cared enough about indexes that it flew her to the ALA Midwinter (brrr) to meet with the authors of AACR2.
Subject: Thinking about the Wilson Award—Elegance and Perfection
Posted 7/4/07
Must a Wilson winner be an index to a ten volume edition of collected works that was twenty years in the making? I have to admit that I was able to spend three years on my Wilson-winning index to the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules. But Dina Dineva wrote her 2000 Wilson-winning index in 18 hours.
Are you working on an index that is a revision of an earlier index? Maybe its basic structure is good, but a little more work on the wording of the subentries would make it easier to use. Do Mi Stauber used the need to repaginate much of The Self-Possessed to do some fine tuning.
Must a Wilson winner be something you have struggled over? Not necessarily. One sign that you’ve learned the craft well is that you can do easily what someone else might consider impossible. I feared that AACR2 didn’t present enough indexing problems to warrant a Wilson Award; to me, the structure for the index was obvious. (But then, I was a child who indexed my sixth grade report on Central America.) I only submitted the index to recognize the struggle my editors made to convince the authors that the structure was indeed obvious.
The Wilson Award recognizes not just good indexing, but indexing that serves as an inspiration and example for indexers to follow. Wilson committees have repeatedly noted the “elegance of the index” (Charlee Trantino), “elegant distinctions” (Margie Towery) “an elegant index to a complex subject” (Dina Dineva) and “unusually elegant in its style” (Laura Moss Gottlieb). It’s not just that the locators are accurate and the cross-references actually refer to something.
Carolyn McGovern, writing in Keywords Nov/Dec 1993, described elegance as “Succinctness; economy of language, the right word in the right place—even if the word isn't found in the text—these are attributes of a well-written index. ... [T]he index has judiciously drawn from the text what the user needs and presented it in a pleasing new form with simplicity and grace.” The Wilson award criteria add “Elegance is the quality that makes an exceptional index more than the sum of its parts.”
Indexes with widely varying literary styles can have elegance. I thought about elegance as I was indexing Preschool Favorites, and was looking for ways I could add to the value of the book for users. I think it made for a better index. Do Mi Stauber writes long, flowing entries, but my own style is concise, to the point where, if I have a choice of wordings for an entry, I often choose the one with fewer letters. Yet both of us have been honored by our peers with Wilson Awards. There's a moral in there somewhere.
Don’t confuse elegance with perfection. Don’t hold back from submitting an index because you didn’t have time to check the locators or the cross-references once more. My index to the 2003 revision of AACR2 had typos and locator errors-—my editor and I discovered them while working on the 2004 revision. I have found minor inconsistencies in other Wilson-winning indexes, but they were overshadowed by the connections the indexer made among concepts that were only implicit in the text. Perfect is the enemy of good.
Janet Russell
Chair, 2008 Wilson Award Committee
Winner, 2004 Wilson Award, who knows that this posting is not perfect, but who prefers to get people thinking they could do it better than to produce the last word on elegance in indexing.
Subject: Thinking about the Wilson Award: Usability
Posted 8/9/07
A good index makes the entire work usable, but the better an indexer does her job, the more invisible the index becomes. Readers may say they found something in a text without remembering that they actually looked in the back of the book index for the word they were thinking of, found a cross-reference to the term used by the author, and turned to the page noted. Or they may have discovered that there were other aspects of the concept they were searching for that actually fit their needs better. We call this quality of an index “usability” and debate endlessly what it is and how to measure it. Nevertheless, every index starts with the intended readers. If they can’t find what they need—and it’s in the book—no amount of stylishness in the wording of what entries there are make any difference.
The Wilson Award criteria describe usability this way:
Does the index appropriately anticipate the needs of its users?
Are the significant concepts indexed?
Are there appropriate alternative terms for accessing concepts?
Are special treatments such as italics and boldface appropriate to the complexity of the material and the needs of the user?
Is there a headnote explaining special treatments?
Does the format provide for ease in visually scanning the index?
Is the phrasing of entries and subentries clear, with significant terms first and no unnecessary prepositions?
At the basic level, most of these criteria relate to the mechanics of the index: locators accurate, cross-references present and accounted for. For me, usability is also closely related to consistency. Even readers who are not familiar with the terminology of publishing will notice subconsciously inconsistencies in formatting or term selection and stop expecting the index to help. The trust the reader has in the text will begin to break apart. A recent thread on Index-L brought out the complexity of the consistency/inconsistency continuum. An index becomes a Wilson exemplar by the way the indexer balances between the extremes.
Shortly before I started work on the revised index to AACR2, an indexer complained on Index-L, in answer to a query on Japanese names, “AACR is mum on the subject, at least according to the rather lousy index in the back.” In this case, it was not the index, but the actual text which was lacking. AACR2 is quite detailed on the names of Thai royalty, so it was reasonable to expect something on Japanese names also, but the only mention of Japanese covers the recording of ordinal numerals. (Trust me.) I took out most of the references to Thai royalty. The committee reviewing the index was obsessed with consistency, but they never noticed that I had handled Thai names differently from names in other languages.
One of the characteristics of a Wilson Award index is the grace with which it handles the less than perfect conditions under which most indexes are written. There is no basic contradiction between elegance and usability. A clunky first draft index may reflect the text exactly. It is up to the indexer to find the best way to express the ideas of the text and meet the needs of the user under the circumstances. Rarely, the indexer has the luxury of suggesting ways to reword a passage to make it easier to index, but most of the time, she has to work with what is there. The index can make an impossible book usable.
There's much more to say about usability, but I want to get this reminder out to you while there's still time to put an extra polish on the last of your 2007 indexes. And I need to get back to the press of work that resulted from my winning the Wilson in 2004.
Janet Russell
Chair, 2008 Wilson Award Committee
Winner, 2004 H. W. Wilson Award for Indexing Excellence for Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2d Edition, revised
Subject: Thinking about the Wilson Award: Locators, Subentries, and
Knowing What Depends
Posted 9/3/07
Getting the mechanics of an index correct is relatively easy nowadays. A few decades ago, an index could be disqualified from Wilson Award consideration for having page numbers out of order. Today, that’s something the software takes care of. The test of an excellent index is still the analysis: knowing what to index, what not to index, and how to arrange the index terms. The Wilson Award Criteria evaluate the analysis of the text with these questions and comments:
Are main entries analyzed appropriately into subentries?
Are subentries overanalyzed so that the same page numbers are repeated again and again in close proximity to one another?
Are there strings of undifferentiated locators at an entry?
Are the number and level of subentries appropriate to the complexity of the book?
Is there more than one access point to significant concepts?
The index should use the author's vocabulary, but should also provide alternative terms and cross-references that will give the reader access.
Entries should be "flipped" where necessary or appropriate.
Are cross-references adequate and useful?
See also references should send readers to appropriate related material.
Double-posting is preferable to See references that send the reader to an entry with very few page references.
On one hand, the Wilson Award Committees are notorious for their loathing of undifferentiated locators. Indeed, Bella Hass Weinberg famously disparaged “...indexing juries, who automatically reject a book with six locators per entry.” However, sometimes there is a reason for using long strings of locators, and more than one Wilson Committee has given the award to an index which breaks this “rule.”
On the other hand, the Wilson criteria discourage a proliferation of subentries. Nevertheless, when I indexed the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, I rarely had even two locators for each entry. I knew the library catalogers who were going to use AACR2 wanted it that way. Usually, I follow Do Mi Stauber and use subentries only to break up what would otherwise be long strings of locators. Except when I do it differently.
As you read the paragraphs above, you may have thought of several exceptions to the rule against “undifferentiated locators” and even more exceptions to the rule against “proliferation of subentries.” You’ve found various elegant approaches to the problems of analysis in several indexes you done this year. You’re annoyed at me for oversimplifying a complex problem. (I haven’t even begun to address the problems of cross-references, which have been the undoing of countless Wilson Award candidates over the years.) Congratulations! You’re probably ready to submit one of your indexes for the Wilson Award. Show the rest of us how it’s done. (If you’re still confused, keep practicing and studying, especially those cross-references, and get ready for next year.)
Janet Russell
Chair, 2008 Wilson Award Committee
Winner of 2004 Wilson Award for Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, who worships the ground Fred Leise walks on.
Subject: Thinking about the Wilson Award: Content and Coverage
Posted 10/5/07
The Wilson Award criteria on content and coverage define what an index is. They may seem self-evident, but they are the place where too many indexes founder.
The criteria say, “The index must bring together references to similar concepts that are scattered in the text, or that are expressed in varying terminology. This can be done by establishing a single heading with subheadings, by using cross-references, double-postings, or with other appropriate devices. All significant items in the text must appear in the index. However, if there is a category of material is not indexed, this should be stated in the introductory note. Items and concepts in the text must be represented in the index by appropriate, precise, accurate, and unambiguous headings. The index headings should be consistent in form and in usage. Inclusion of synonymous headings and spelling variations, if used, should be intentional to facilitate access.
The index should represent the text and not be a vehicle for expressing the indexer's own views and interests. Does the index cover the ground? Does it do so in an evenhanded fashion? Look up a few important topics to see if coverage is adequate. The index should go beyond listing the main headings in each chapter or rearranging the table of contents. Significant concepts should be indexed and scattered discussions of a concept should be brought together. Irrelevant information such as scene-setting material or passing mentions, should not be indexed.”
In short, you need to make sure the reader can get to every concept in the text, no matter how it is spelled or with what nuance it is expressed by the author. There are many techniques the indexers toolkit, and you need to use them all. Yet, the Wilson Award Committee reports for the years with no winner are remarkably consistent about the problems they saw in the submissions they judged:
Missing Headnotes: “A judiciously worded head note—a rarity among this year’s submissions—can provide an essential explanation as to why an unusual indexing style or approach was appropriate for that work.” (2005); “lack of an explanatory headnote with unusual treatments” (1996). “Even more serious were omissions from the index of indexable material. In one case we thought that some material that appeared in sidebars might not have been available to the indexer; however, we had no information about the circumstances and thus eliminated the index.” (1993) A headnote might have kept that index in the running.
Cross-references: The 1996 committee complained about “inadequate cross-referencing.” In 1993 “Cross-references presented more problems than we imagined. Simple errors included failure to use the full form of the main entry after a See also reference and blind See references. We also found see also references from specific entries to more general entries that were not related. There were many instances of missing cross-references from terms a reader might expect to find in the index to the main entries actually used.”
Double Posting: The 1996 committee criticized “poor handling of ‘flips’” The 1993 committee found that “Frequently, page references for the same entries were different, or subentries that appeared under a main entry, “Mysticism,” for example, did not also appear as a subentry under the name of one of the persons who was listed under “Mysticism.”
The 1993 and 1996 committee also decried undifferentiated locators, although these could have been explained by a good headnote.
When I was working on the index to the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, I made darn sure there was a headnote to explain the arcane alphabetization style (word-by-word) I used. I wracked my brain for synonyms for the obscure library jargon, and will be forever grateful to the active cataloger who told me that real catalogers used “relator terms” for what AACR2 called “designations of function.” I triple-checked my double postings, and didn’t submit an earlier revision of the index, which was essentially the same as the 2003 update that eventually won, because there was a double posting error on the first page.
Meanwhile, my editor was working to correct the stupid typesetter tricks, such as italicizing all the “see”s in the index, including the “see” in “addressee of letters.” Wilson Award committees really don’t like stupid publisher tricks: ”Lack of continuation headings at the tops of columns, especially when a column breaks over two pages; typographical errors; formatting errors such as wrap-around lines with no indentation or not enough indentation” disqualified many 1993 entries. A decade later, “bad column breaks, orphan headings, incorrect indents, or lack of ‘continued’ lines” plagued the 2005 entries. The Wilson Award is given jointly to the indexer and the publisher, so if your index has been sabotaged by your publisher, I can only suggest you save your submission money and try again next year with a different publisher.
It’s time to look back on your work for the year and review it in the light of the Wilson Award criteria. If you and your typesetter have managed to avoid these traps, and you think your index goes beyond technically accurate to elegantly usable, start thinking more seriously about submitting this year.
Janet Russell
Chair, 2008 Wilson Award Committee
Winner, 2004 Wilson Award for Indexing Excellence, who never did figure out a good synonym for "Artefacts not intended primarily for communication" in time to include it in the index to AACR2.
Subject: Thinking about the Wilson Award—In praise of diversity
Posted 11/12/07
I recently posted the complete version of the Wilson Award criteria on the ASI website. I still have two sections left to discuss here, but I think it’s a good time to pause and consider what the Wilson Award criteria don’t include:
The index does not need to conform to the Chicago Manual of Style, any edition.
Stylistic decisions like run-in vs. indented format or word-by-word vs. letter-by-letter alphabetization don’t matter to the Wilson Award Committee, although they have been the subject of endless arguments among editors and indexers. What is important is how the indexer uses them. After all, depending on the particular situation, both word-by-word and letter—by-letter can turn out counterintuitive orderings. My draft index to the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules had some of these problems, which I solved by rewording the entries slightly until strict word-by-word ordering matched what the authors thought the order should be. I also included a detailed explanation of how the word-by-word alphabetizing worked in the headnote, for good measure.
Similarly, the capitalization of See and See also, or placement of cross-reference don’t matter to the committee (although the authors of AACR2 had strong opinions on the subject). It's only important that the index is consistent.
I admit that the criteria apply mostly directly to books in the humanities, but the Wilson Committee understands that specific disciplines often have different conventions. Legal indexing encourages multiple subentries from the same page. Biographies often call for undifferentiated locators for minor characters. If the index structure works for the audience to which the book is addressed, it can be a winner.
The criteria say repeatedly that features of the index should be correct, but they don’t always specify what is correct. That varies within each discipline and within each index. For that reason, the Wilson Award Committee is comprised of experienced indexers, representing the collective wisdom of the profession and a broad a range of specialties. In addition, I plan to have consultants standing by should the committee have questions on indexing practices in a particular discipline. We know that, as Kay Banning (chair of the 2007 committee) reminded us, “I would have done it differently” is not a reason for disqualifying an index from consideration.
So consider letting the 2008 Wilson Award Committee consider your index. The call for submissions will be going out soon. Time to ask your publisher for a copy of the book with your best index. The publisher may even offer, as mine did, to pay the submission fee.
Janet Russell
Winner, 2004 Wilson Award for the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, Second edition Chair, 2008 Wilson Award Committee, who never underestimates the value of a good headnote.
Subject: Thinking about the Wilson Award—Accuracy and Style
Posted 12/5/07
The Wilson Award Committee is now accepting submissions for the 2008 Wilson Award. Time for a last review of the indexes you have written this year. I have a few more comments on the Wilson Award criteria here. You can find the complete criteria on the ASI Website, along with the application form. I hope I've persuaded some experienced indexers to submit this year, but if you do, don't tell me. The judging is anonymous and confidential and I don't want to have to disqualify myself.
The criteria say, “There should be no misspellings or typos, no odd page ranges or references out of order. Alphabetization of main entries, subentries, and cross-references should be correct. Punctuation should be correct. Forms of names and terms should be correct and appropriate to the field of specialization. Cross-references should be neither circular nor to missing or differently worded entries. ‘Flipped’ entries should have the same page references at both locations in the index.”
Well, of course. These criteria should be characteristic of any index submitted to a publisher, and don’t, in themselves, single an index out for special mention. A brilliant analysis can’t make up for careless errors, and you have to get the mechanics right. The mechanics are a lot easier than they were when these criteria were written in 1993, thanks to the specialized indexing software. Back then, there were still people using index cards or word processors and alphabetizing by hand. Even now, you have to know when to force a sort in your indexing software. It is, however, too easy to get bogged down in checking and rechecking. Therefore, you do your best, read the index one more time, and let it go. After all, which is more important, checking whether Joan C. Smith and Joan Carroll Smith are the same person, or spending the time thinking about the relation of Smith to the metatopic of the work and choosing the precise language to describe it?
The criteria go on: “Is the style consistent throughout? The index entries should be presented in a format, typography, and style that provides maximum ease of scanning the index and locating individual entries. A clear and logical organization should be evident. Spacing, indentations, and general page design should present a page that is aesthetically pleasing. Does the style effectively resolve challenges presented by the text? Look at such style points as: sorting order; punctuation of cross-references; leading and separator punctuation of locators; abbreviation of inclusive ranges; positioning of cross-references; run-in. vs. indented subentries; capitalization of main entries; use of alternative typefaces. The index should be appropriate in size to the number of pages in the publication and the type of material contained therein.”
Style here refers to typographic style. (Literary style can also come into an index; the subheadings in a run-in index can read like poetry.) A consistent typographic style is a way of building trust with the reader. The average reader may not consciously notice that you have written “cats, nutrition of” but “dogs, food for”, but will feel a jar that distracts from the purpose of finding information. Most of the decisions relating to the layout of the index are made by the publisher, so indexers may feel that it is not fair to judge their work after a publisher has mangled it. Remember that an exceptionally good index, a Wilson Award winning index, is one that the indexer and publisher working together have made invisible to the user. The users know only that they found what they wanted in the book; they shouldn’t notice the features of the book that made it possible to find.
So winning a Wilson Award is one way to get recognition for the quality of your indexing work. It’s given by people who can appreciate the work involved.
Janet Russell
Chair, 2008 Wilson Award Committee
Winner, 2004 H.W. Wilson Award for Excellence in Indexing, not that any award means anything when the cats’ dinner is late.
Subject: Thinking about the Wilson Award—Why submit?
Posted 1/4/08
What good is the Wilson Award, except for the person who actually wins it? Why should you bother if only the superstar indexers have a chance? (Not that Wilson Award Winners are superhuman; they’re just hard workers.) It’s bad enough to lose to an exceptional indexer, but what if the committee rejects everyone, as it did too often in recent years?
Because studying the Wilson Award winners and applying the Wilson Award criteria to your own work can make you a better indexer. Going the extra step to submit an index for judging requires a confidence in your work. I have long followed the advice of my first spinning teacher, Paula Simmons: “The more certain you are of what you are doing, the more your work reflects your confidence. In wine it is what is called ‘authority’ and it is what people pay for.” Confidence makes you a better indexer. And the nation desperately needs better indexers.
This brings me to the last section of the Wilson Award Criteria:
“—The index entries should be arranged in a recognizable or stated searchable order, such as alphabetical, classified, chronological, or numerical order.
—The locators given in the index should tally with the text.
—Strings of undifferentiated locators should generally be avoided by use of appropriate subheadings or other appropriate devices. If the number of locators in a given entry is so large that the aspects of the heading are not adequately differentiated, additional headings, subheadings, or modifiers should be introduced. Headings should be as specific as the nature of the collection permits and the purposes of the users require.
—There must be a sufficient number of cross-references in the index so that related items are connected, and obsolete or idiosyncratic terms in the text are related to terms in current use.
—Abbreviations, acronyms, symbols, or other abridgments of word or phrases should be explained in an appropriate manner.”
I would think these principles would be obvious. I’ve never heard anyone argue that locators should not tally with the text. Admittedly, undifferentiated locators are more controversial. However, the breaking down of a long number of locators using subentries can be what differentiates a good index from an excellent one.
So why has it been so difficult for me to find candidates for a Mock Wilson Award judging for my chapter? Take, for example, this index entry from one of the books I was considering (nameless here to protect the guilty): “San Francisco, 4, 15, 23, 24-25, 32, 53, 63, 65, 79, 109, 121.” That’s bad enough, but on p. 79 I only found “If you were to look at a map of the San Francisco Bay Area with the aim of choosing one of its least pleasant corners, San Leandro would be a good choice.” There was no entry for San Leandro, although, given that the book was about corporate culture and not travel, neither entry was called for. What was the indexer thinking?
If you were thinking about indexing and the Wilson Award criteria for any time at all last year, you’ve done better indexes than that one. It’s time to review your work for the past year and decide whether you have indexed something that might merit a Wilson Award. It’s time to request a copy of the book from your publisher. It’s time to review the Wilson Award criteria again and apply them to the indexes you are writing in 2008.
Janet Russell
Chair, 2008 Wilson Award Committee
Winner, 2004 H.W. Wilson Award for Excellence in Indexing, who still isn’t always confident.
Subject: Thinking about the Wilson Award—Time Is Running Out
Posted 2/6/08
The deadline for submitting an index for the 2008 Wilson Award is February 29. The ASI Webmasters have made it easy for you: just click on “Submit for the Wilson Award Here!!!” at <asindexing.org>.
Last week, I held a Mock Wilson Award Judging with several people from the Golden Gate chapter helping me practice for the actual judging next month. For indexes to judge I took books from my local library. The indexes had looked acceptable when I pulled them from the library shelves, but when the mock committee looked at them more closely, they quickly eliminated most of the indexes from further consideration. The problems were the usual suspects: inadequate cross-references, undifferentiated locators, and confusing arrangements. One even had adjectives as the sole entry term.
At the last minute I slipped in a book from my own collection, and it became our winner. It was the index to Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s A Midwife’s Tale, a biography of Martha Ballard, a midwife working in Maine in the early years of the Republic. Ulrich teases out details of many aspects of eighteenth century life from the bare notations in the diary/account book. It is a fascinating book, made more interesting to me because I had ancestors living in Maine at about the same time. The index has an elegant solution to the problem of indexing the subject of a biography. At the top of the entry for “Ballard, Martha Moore” the indexer has inserted the note “[personal data are cited here; other aspects of her life and career are found throughout the index, by topic].” (I intend to steal this idea in my next biography index.)
The book was published in 1990, and so would have been a candidate for the Wilson Award in 1991. I wonder who wrote the index, and why he or she didn’t submit it. Or if the book was submitted, but another index was considered stronger that year. Whatever the reason, this indexer had reason to be proud. I know some people are reluctant to submit because they think not winning means they wrote a bad index. Not at all. All the indexes I saw last year at the 2007 Wilson judging had good points. It will be my job as chair this year to be sure the entire committee finds those good points in this year’s submissions. I hope we find another extraordinary index to celebrate.
My main concern when I included the index to A Midwife’s Tale in the mock judging was that the publisher had failed to include continuation lines at the top of columns. I was afraid that this stupid publisher trick would disqualify the excellent work the indexer had done. None of my mock judges even noticed. Then I noticed that the real Wilson Award winners for 2007 and 2006 didn’t have continuation lines either. I guess continuation lines are a lost cause. So if you’ve held back on a really good index because your publisher blew the layout, there’s still time to submit. If the index is so good that the judges don’t notice the flaws, it has a chance. (I have to add the disclaimer that the opinions expressed herein are my own and not those of the Wilson Award Committee. I’m only one judge out of seven this year.)
The Wilson Award is not for the perfect index. It is for the excellent index that teaches the rest of us how it should be done. If you wrote an index this year that you’d like to show off to your fellow indexers, you still have time to submit. Don’t hide your light under a bushel. Did I say that there’s a $1000 check and a trip to the 2008 ASI convention involved?
Janet Russell
Chair, 2008 Wilson Award Committee
Winner, 2004 Wilson Award for the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd edition, which did have continuation lines. They don't hurt.
Presentation of the 2008 Wilson Award
It was an honor and a joy to be the Chair of the 2008 Wilson Award Committee. I got to spend a year thinking about what makes for excellence in an index and I ended up with a most amazingly excellent Wilson Award winner. In case you missed the announcement, the 2008 Wilson Award winner is Margie Towery for The History of Cartography, volume 3: The Cartography of the European Renaissance, parts 1 and 2, published by the University of Chicago Press. It has 1903 indexable pages. This is the second time Margie has won the Wilson Award. For those who remember her gripping 2002 Award talk about slicing apart the early volumes of the Letters of Matthew Arnold, let me assure you that no books were harmed in the writing of this index.
Before I hand over the award and the podium to Margie, I’d like to recognize the people of the 2008 Wilson Award Committee: Kay Banning, Theresa Duran, Ellen Sherron, Peg Mauer, Lee Patterson (our registrar), and Carolyn Weaver. I was particularly fortunate to be Wilson Award chair during Carolyn Weaver’s presidential year. Thank you again, Carolyn. Thanks also to Kay Schlembach, our ASI Board Liaison. And I need to make a shout-out to my Mom, who made sure the judges were properly fed. I thank the H. W. Wilson Company for continuing to sponsor this award. Margie will be taking home a check for $1000.
In March, we gathered at my home to evaluate the submissions against the Wilson Award criteria. We had twelve submissions, two more than last year (yay!). In general, we were impressed by the quality of this year’s submissions. As the judges began to examine the books, I heard people muttering, “nice touch” or “I like the way it handles the glossary entries” about one or another books. Then we started hearing “I think I’m in love.” ...“This index is very seductive—it draws you in.” ... and “Listen to this: “geographers: as God. The analysis is appropriate and it’s double posted under God!” It wasn’t long after that we declared Cartography of the European Renaissance our 2008 Wilson Award winner.
What captured me was the entry, “Cartography, pleasures of.” When I checked the page numbers, I could see that she had brought together references by different authors to the enjoyment of cartography, the entertainment of cartography, the pleasures of cartography. In other words, she demonstrated her grasp of the Wilson Award criterion “scattered discussions of a concept should be brought together.” But it was not just that she had the Wilson Award criteria down cold, which she did. She went beyond that to make the index a pleasure to read. Not just the pleasures of cartography, but the pleasures of indexing. For reminding us all of the possibilities and the pleasures of indexing, the 2008 Wilson Award for Excellence in Indexing goes to Margie Towery!