Article
May 28, 2019
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by Stephen

ISC/SCI Ottawa 2019 Indexing Conference Recap

I am home from the Indexing Society of Canada/Société canadienne d’indexation’s conference in Ottawa, back to working on an index that is due ASAP while also trying to recover from a few packed days at the conference and a late flight home Sunday night. I do enjoy the conferences—one of the best ways to gain a sense of community, in my opinion—and the conferences are exhausting, for this rather shy person. More so this year, perhaps, due to a busy couple of weeks in the lead up. For the first time ever, I skipped out on a session for some alone time. 

Still, I thought I’d jot down a few highlights while the conference is still fresh in my mind.

  • One of my key takeaways was to better learn how to vet books (to use Enid Zafran’s term) prior to indexing, and to get a much better handle on the index structure at the beginning of the indexing process, as per Fred Leise’s excellent presentation. This feels like a natural next step in improving how I index.
  • I also have much food for thought on how to run my business from Pierre Joyal’s presentation on incorporation, as well as from conversations with another more experienced indexer. I feel like I have to be very careful in how I grow my business, as I don’t want to focus on growth to the exclusion of writing. If anything, I want to index less so that I can write more. At the same time, I expect that I will index for many years to come, so I do need to pay attention to the business side of things. I think what I need is a business that grows in such a way to support the work and life that I want, rather than growth at any cost. 
  • I am very thankful to have attended Enid Zafran’s all-day workshop on indexing names, especially as Enid announced that she is slowing down and that this might be her last workshop. She is a masterful teacher and indexer, and I definitely learned a few things about names that I did not know before. 
  • Kate Mertes is also an excellent presenter, and her talk on index locorums was illuminating. That said, outside of Biblical citations, I don’t feel at all qualified to take on an index locorum. Kate definitely has a unique set of skills.
  • This conference felt like the beginnings of a generational turnover. There are a number of indexers in both the Canadian and American societies who have decades of experience, and who have done so much to teach and mentor. It seems like more of them are starting to either slow down or retire. I am glad that they are still with us, but this conference did seem to be a reminder that a new generation will need to step up in the next few years. 
  • I am no longer a coordinator for the Mary Newberry Mentorship Program. That responsibility is now passed on to Linda Christian and Alexandrea Jory. I think they will do an excellent job, and after two years of putting the program together, I am ready to pass it on. Still, letting go is bittersweet. 
  • For a door prize I picked up a hard copy of the manual for the new Cindex 4.0. I guess this means I better upgrade. 
  • The biggest surprise of the conference was being given the Tamarack Award, which is for volunteer service “above and beyond the call of duty.” In my case, so I was told, largely for putting together the mentorship program. I was also told that my face turned several shades of red while receiving the award. Many thanks to all present for your kind words and acknowledgement. If you are interested in knowing what the award looks like, here it is perched on one of the bookshelves in my living room.
Article
October 3, 2016
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by Stephen

Decolonizing the Index: Indexing in Indigenous Studies

REDERMORRAJULY16colonial-problemIf you have indexed for long, you have probably been asked what areas you index in. You have probably also asked yourself this question when trying to market yourself more effectively. Is there a niche topic in which you can stand out?

Personally, I’ve had mixed results trying to market myself with specific subjects. It might be a foot in the door, but once I’m in I can end up being asked to index anything and everything. For example, an academic publisher who publishers in Asian studies and religious studies, two areas I am interested in, is also likely to publish in sociology and African studies, for example, and if they like me as an indexer I am just as likely to get any of the above or something else entirely. It really depends on what their next book is. So while there are particular areas in which I feel uniquely qualified or have a special interest in, I’m open to indexing almost anything within the social sciences and humanities. That seems to be as narrow as most of my clients are willing to pigeon-hole me. It might be different, though, for subjects such as law or medicine, which have their own dedicated publishers and conventions.

All that said, in this post I am going to briefly discuss a niche that I inadvertently discovered and have had opportunity to reflect on, most recently in The Indexer, the international journal of indexing, which is a wonderful publication and a must read if you are an indexer.

Indigenous studies is an area I first grappled with as an indexer when writing my award-winning index for the book Strange Visitors. I go into more detail about that book and winning the Purple Pen Award here. For now, as a recap, it was my first introduction to the contested language that so often surrounds Indigenous issues in North America, as well as the emotionally charged tensions that surrounds colonialism and the ways in which we tell these stories. I also found this topic difficult because I am myself a white settler. In the story of colonialism, I am the bad guy, to put it simply. How do I deal with that when indexing a book that is angry at people like me?

In other ways, however, is Indigenous studies really all that different from other disciplines? If Indigenous history, how is that different from other types of history? If Indigenous literature, how is that different from, say, Chinese literature? I think this is a good point to make: the type of content and how it is indexed may not be so different from other disciplines. What is different is how contested and emotionally charged the material can be, which includes my own personal involvement in the issues by virtue of living in a country in which colonialism and reconciliation are contemporary realities.

I was able to first explore these issues in a short article I wrote last year for Geez (Fall 2015, issue 39), a Canadian magazine which bills itself as “contemplative cultural resistance.” Then, earlier this year, Maureen MacGlashan asked me about writing something for The Indexer. Bouncing ideas back and forth, I mentioned the Geez article. Maureen liked it, asked to reprint it, and asked if I could expand my reflections, so The Indexer version (just published in vol. 34, no. 3, Sept. 2016, and also available online here) contains a postscript which is longer than the original article.

Now, I don’t want to claim that I am an expert just because I have some published thoughts on indexing in Indigenous studies. At the same time, I’m no longer a complete novice in the subject either. I think I can claim an edge when it comes to indexing Indigenous studies. Let’s call it, then, an edge in process. I hope to continue indexing in Indigenous studies and increasing my knowledge and effectiveness. I hope you have a chance to read my thoughts, in either Geez or The Indexer. If you do, perhaps send me a note or leave a comment below. I’d be glad to hear your thoughts on this subject as well.

And, for those of you curious, below is a list of Indigenous studies books I’ve indexed so far.

Teach, Learn, Challenge: Approaching Indigenous Literatures, edited by Deanna Reder and Linda M. Morra (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2016)

The Colonial Problem: An Indigenous Perspective on Crime and Injustice in Canada, by Lisa Monchalin (University of Toronto Press, 2016)

From Treaty Peoples to Treaty Nation: A Road Map For All Canadians, by Greg Poelzer and Ken S. Coates (UBC Press, 2015)

We Are Coming Home: Repatriation and the Restoration of Blackfoot Cultural Confidence, ed. by Gerald T. Conaty (AU Press, 2015)

You Will Wear a White Shirt: From the Northern Bush to the Halls of Power, by Nick Sibbeston (Douglas & McIntyre, 2015)

Strange Visitors: Documents in the History of Indigenous and Settler Relations in Canada from 1876, ed. by Keith D. Smith (University of Toronto Press, 2014)

Conversations With a Dead Man: The Legacy of Duncan Campbell Scott, by Mark Abley (Douglas & McIntyre, 2013)

We Are Born with the Songs Inside Us: Lives and Stories of First Nations People in British Columbia, by Katherine Palmer Gordon (Harbour Publishing, 2013)

Article
November 28, 2015
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by Stephen

My Award Winning Index: Strange Visitors

9781442605688I came really close to missing out on the Purple Pen Award for new indexers. I knew that the deadline was approaching, but I was also enjoying a road trip with the woman who is now my wife. On the due date of the competition, we were staying with friends who live on a large lake, boat access only, electricity from solar panels and a generator, and patchy internet.

The PDF of the book I needed to upload for the competition was big. The internet, as I mentioned, was slow and unreliable. I couldn’t tell from my email program if the files had sent or not. I restarted the process a few times. I might have successfully sent those files a couple of times without realizing it.

Had I been at home with reliable internet, instead of in the wilderness with my dear love, would I have been more on top of submitting to the competition? I hope so. Sending the files certainly wouldn’t have been so nerve-wracking. I was still confident, though, in my chances for winning that I pressed on with the submission.

And the end result of all that time spent huddled over my laptop on that lovely summer day in southeastern British Columbia, not to mention the hours spent writing that particular index?

I won the award.

It was 2014, my second year as a freelancer and my fourth as an indexer. I won the inaugural Purple Pen Award for best new indexer, given by the Institute of Certified Indexers. My winning index was for Strange Visitors: Documents in the History of Indigenous and Settler Relations in Canada from 1876, edited by Keith D. Smith, and published by the University of Toronto Press in 2014.

Why was I so confident that I might win? There were three reasons.

  1. I figured that a prize-winning index should be unique in some way, which meant that the book indexed should be unique. You want to stand out, right? The book I won for, Strange Visitors, was a collection of primary documents spanning a hundred years and covering over a dozen subjects within Indigenous and settler relations in Canada. It wasn’t your typical monograph or anthology. When I received this book I sensed that this was an index I could experiment and apply new techniques and skills to.
  2. But to show off skills, you must first, of course, acquire them. I wrote the index for Strange Visitors shortly after attending the annual conference held by the Indexing Society of Canada. I left that conference with a list of new ideas and techniques that I wanted to put into practice. Thankfully I soon received just the projects to do that with.
  3. At this point I was also realizing my own progress as an indexer. I could see that I was learning and implementing new techniques. I was indexing more challenging books and my clients seemed happy with the results. I could look back at early indexes I had written and critique them. So, while still recognizing that I wasn’t yet an indexing vet, I wasn’t a complete rookie either. Just possibly my recent work was good enough to win an award.

In the end, the judges, of course, had their own criteria (which can be found here) by which they judged the submissions. Perhaps they would have been just as happy with another index of mine from that time period.

I am thankful, though, for the recognition given to me by the judges. It tells me that I am on the right track with my indexing, and I am excited to keep learning and improving. I am also thankful to the University of Toronto Press for asking me to index Strange Visitors. They publish beautifully written and designed books, and I am proud to work with them.