From: SMTP%"LISTSERV@BINGVMB.cc.binghamton.edu" 1-JUL-1998 14:04:34.48 To: CIRJA02 CC: Subj: File: "INDEX-L LOG9804C" Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 13:42:55 +0000 From: BITNET list server at BINGVMB (1.8a) Subject: File: "INDEX-L LOG9804C" To: CIRJA02@GSVMS1.CC.GASOU.EDU ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 20:40:10 -0700 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Victoria Baker Subject: Re: List of indexable terms In-Reply-To: <199804131240.FAA28765@pacific.net> Pilar wrote: >To disagree with others so far, YES. > >I often work directly with authors, or in close contact with authors as well >as their publishers. I routinely tell them that I welcome such terms. I like working with authors. Pilar outlined some important aspects of this. I also, when offered a list, say directly: I welcome the list, I find it very useful, and I need to be able to change the list for any of a number of reasons: 1) the structure of the index dictates placing the material elsewhere, 2) the form of the term is not the most usable form, 3) the suggested term is really a subheading under a larger term, etc. I'm always careful to assure the author that no information will be lost through any such alterations of the list that may be necessary. With one exception, the authors I've worked for have been extremely pleased with the decisions I've made, and as Pilar noted, have expressed that the index was far better than they'd dared imagined. As for policy, that would seem hard to lay down, because some authors really don't want to be bothered with the index, and some care very much. I think a policy excluding such lists would really upset the latter group; whereas a policy requiring lists would generate a lot of useless ones from the former group. --Victoria ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 13:17:26 +0100 Reply-To: paul.wheaton@virgin.net Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Paul Wheaton Organization: Home Subject: Electronic file format Hi I'm relatively new here, and to Indexing for that matter. I've run into a small problem the manual I've been sent is in Abode Acrobat .pdf format. Does anyone know of a file converter or will I have to print out the proofs from Acrobat? Thanks in advance Paul ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 07:09:51 -0700 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Jan C. Wright" Subject: Re: Electronic file format In-Reply-To: <199804151335.JAA27753@camel5.mindspring.com> There are file converters, but it is easiest to just download Acrobat (it's free) and print it from there. File converters are available on the adobe site, but considering you have to have PageMaker or Illustrator (I believe, I haven't checked on this) it really would be simpler just to do the download. You can get acrobat at www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html There are versions for both Macs and PCs, and it works with your web browser as well, allowing you to view PDF online. At 01:17 PM 4/15/98 +0100, you wrote: >Hi I'm relatively new here, and to Indexing for that matter. I've run >into a small problem the manual I've been sent is in Abode Acrobat .pdf >format. Does anyone know of a file converter or will I have to print out >the proofs from Acrobat? >Thanks in advance > >Paul > Jan +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Jan C. Wright Wright Information Indexing Services Jancw@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~jancw +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:07:35 -0500 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Carol Roberts Subject: Mac tech problem, phase II Many thanks to all who sent advice (and/or comfort) regarding the problem with my monitor. The consensus was that it's a hardware problem (i.e., the monitor itself) rather than a software problem. I'm going to test that theory today or tomorrow by swapping my monitor with my hubby's, while he's out of town. That oughta solve the problem right there! ;-) And because it's been a while since I've played any good practical jokes, I'm going to leave the monitors swapped and see how long it takes him to notice. Tee hee. Cheers, Carol Roberts, indexer and copy editor | I'm not into working out. My Carol.Roberts@mixcom.com | philosophy: No pain, no pain. Milwaukee, WI | -- Carol Leifer http://www.mixweb.com/Roberts.Indexing ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:00:36 -0500 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Carol Roberts Subject: Re: Articles in titles In-Reply-To: <199804150600.BAA23479@mixcom.mixcom.com> >The biggest objection I can think of is that since it hasn't >been done this way, doing it so differently might be more disruptive for >readers than any of the lesser disruptions mentioned above. But is _this_ >really true? Michael, you may be right that we do it that way because it's traditional. But that in itself can be a pretty strong reason for not changing it--readers won't be looking for those titles in the As and Ts. Perhaps, though, there is some legitimacy to the tradition. Readers are less likely to remember what article, if any, a title started with, so they'll look up the first word after the title. Cheers, Carol Roberts, indexer and copy editor | I'm not into working out. My Carol.Roberts@mixcom.com | philosophy: No pain, no pain. Milwaukee, WI | -- Carol Leifer http://www.mixweb.com/Roberts.Indexing ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 10:15:02 -0500 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Carol Roberts Subject: birding/dancing in Seattle First of all, my apologies to those who can't go to Seattle this year, for posting this. Usually, I post about birdwatching at ASI conferences. I'd still be interested in that, but I was also wondering whether anyone who's going to the conference is into ballroom dancing (swing, rumba, foxtrot, etc.). I'm *not* looking for a date, guys--hubby wouldn't like that one bit--but it would be fun to go with a group. Anybody interested? Cheers, Carol (dancin' fool) Roberts | I'm not into working out. My Carol.Roberts@mixcom.com | philosophy: No pain, no pain. Milwaukee, WI | -- Carol Leifer http://www.mixweb.com/Roberts.Indexing P.S. Well, maybe I am into working out after all. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 01:34:25 +1000 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Dwight Walker Subject: YWCA, YHA hostels in Seattle? Hi I'm going to Seattle in May - I would be interested in any info or URLs on hostel or lower cost accommodation in Seattle for me to try out... Please reply soon as it is getting VERY close now... Dwight Australia ---------------------------------------------------------- Dwight Walker, Sydney, Australia tel +61-2-98960286, mob 0412-405727, fax +61-2-97772058 ICQ No. 4631678, handle: wwwalker (www.mirabilis.com) WWWalker Web Development: http://www.wwwalker.com.au Australian Society of Indexers: http://www.zeta.org.au/~aussi Sydney Linux Users Group http://www.slug.org.au Waverley Randwick Philharmonic http://www.wwwalker.com.au/wrps.html ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 01:34:32 +1000 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Dwight Walker Subject: Web indexing course update Hi I will be releasing WEBIX in Java. Mac, UNIX or Windows machines will be able to run it. Due date: May 1998. I intend to keep running the Web indexing courses via the internet each month till demand drops off. Courses I plan: mid May-mid June mid June-mid July Courses run for 3 hours per week: Friday or Saturday evenings US time, Saturday or Sunday late mornings Australian EST. See www.wwwalker.com.au/webcourse.html Any queries to: dwight@zip.com.au Thanks for your high interest out there! Dwight WWWalker Web Development ---------------------------------------------------------- Dwight Walker, Sydney, Australia tel +61-2-98960286, mob 0412-405727, fax +61-2-97772058 ICQ No. 4631678, handle: wwwalker (www.mirabilis.com) WWWalker Web Development: http://www.wwwalker.com.au Australian Society of Indexers: http://www.zeta.org.au/~aussi Sydney Linux Users Group http://www.slug.org.au Waverley Randwick Philharmonic http://www.wwwalker.com.au/wrps.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 12:01:59 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: CGWeaver Subject: Re: YWCA, YHA hostels in Seattle? In a message dated 98-04-15 11:35:31 EDT, you write: << I'm going to Seattle in May - I would be interested in any info or URLs on hostel or lower cost accommodation in Seattle for me to try out... >> Check out the 30th annual conference page on the ASI Web page. It contains links to a lot of Seattle web sites, which include lodging information, recreational information (re the inquiries about dancing and bird watching), etc. Carolyn Weaver Bellevue, WA ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 12:35:39 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Barry Koffler Subject: Re: birding/dancing in Seattle In-Reply-To: <199804151528.LAA26012@ulster.net> >the conference is into ballroom dancing (swing, rumba, foxtrot, etc.). I'm >*not* looking for a date, guys--hubby wouldn't like that one bit--but it >would be fun to go with a group. Anybody interested? > Carol - Darn. Well, I'll be swing dancin', but not in Seattle. Want me to try and find a contact with the Swing Society out there for you? I don't have ballroom contacts, but know the Swing crowd pretty well. -Barry oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo barkof@ulster.net Barry Koffler mid-Hudson Valley, NY the FeatherSite at http://www.feathersite.com/ lead me not into temptation . . . I can find it myself. oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 08:00:54 -0700 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Lynn Moncrief Subject: Re: Articles in titles (was French Titles) In-Reply-To: <199804142113.OAA13645@mail-gw5.pacbell.net> At 02:02 PM 4/14/98 -0700, Michael wrote: >Why not resolve all of these issues by keeping the leading "The" in place >but filing it in the "Ts"?, which is to say, why shouldn't we sort leading >articles in titles? I don't do it this way myself, but I am wanting to ask >"Why shouldn't we?" Many have said this would overload the "As" and the >"Ts", but how could filing words according to their spelling be considered >overloading? Hi Michael, I agree with you about the fear of "overloading" a certain letter of the alphabet. After all, even in indexes without titles beginning with "The", there is usually one or more letter groups with a lot of entries, depending on the subject matter. It just seems to work out that way and no one is concerned about it. Thus, the concern about "overloading" a certain letter groups is IMHO inconsequential. > The biggest objection I can think of is that since it hasn't >been done this way, doing it so differently might be more disruptive for >readers than any of the lesser disruptions mentioned above. But is _this_ >really true? I think it *is* true. But it is more true for some readers than others, IMHO. Readers who are used to using indexes are far less likely to look under a leading article because they know that it is conventionally ignored (or put at the end of a heading). OTOH, readers who are unfamiliar with using indexes and with indexing conventions are more likely to look under the article. This is just my guess and isn't based on any research, scientific or otherwise. ;-D > >Consider the fact that we, or at least most of us, _do_ sort leading >articles in place names, foreign and domestic: we sort "The Hague" in the >"Ts" (with a _See_ ref from "Hague, The" or perhaps just "Hague"), and "Los >Angeles" in the "Ls" (could anybody imagine putting it in the "As"?). Why >should we treat titles differently? Hmmm. Actually, I would sort "The Hague" under the H's. ;-D And, yes, I would sort Los Angeles under the L's. I think that we treat titles differently because we try to place them where we would expect readers to look for them. Even though Los Angeles is Spanish for "the angels", it is the name of a U.S. city with the article "Los" as an inherent part of the name. (Living 40 miles south of LA, I can't help but snicker a bit and go "yeah, right!" when I think of what the name translates as. Quite a few "fallen angels", maybe. ;-D) OTOH, "The Hague" is not a US city (with the name *not* having become Anglicized in our minds into almost one word like "Los Angeles"), so the article "The" still stands out in our minds as an article. > >Noting this difference in her in-depth review of Nancy Mulvany's _Indexing >Books_ (Journal of the American Society for Information Science, January >1995) Bella Hass Weinberg suggested ignoring leading "the"s in place names >as well as in titles -- "If we say _the_ is ignored, let's stick to it." (p. >68) The trouble with this proposal is that in its attempt at consistency it >introduces another inconsistency that could be worse -- treating leading >articles in English place names differently from leading articles in foreign >language place names. But, I think there's a good reason for that inconsistency. English-speaking readers are not likely to recognize articles as such in foreign place names unless they are familiar with the relevant foreign language. And being that the book being indexed is written in English, the unspoken assumption is that the majority of the readership speaks English as its mother tongue. Even those readers who *are* familiar with the language of the foreign place name aren't very likely to immediately think of the first word as an article when looking for the name in an index. Here's an example of how this tends to work. Only yesterday, I was talking with a good friend who's a high-energy physicist and we got into a discussion about particle physics, the neutrino in particular. He asked me if I knew what the word meant in Italian, being that I'm very familiar with the language. Would you believe that it took me a few minutes to come up with the answer ("little neutral one")? As familiar as I am with Italian, I learned the word in an English-speaking context and never really thought of it as an Italian word though it obviously is. OTOH, I learned certain telecommunications concepts in Italian while working as a technician in Italy and had a devil of a time trying to come up with the English forms of the terms when I first tried my hand at writing and indexing telecommunications manuals in English. And it's because these concepts originally resided only in the "Italian compartment" of my mind, the language that I learned them in and thought about them in for quite a while. Indexing with your mind bouncing around in two languages is quite ...ahem... interesting. Nor did it help that when I did have to write in English about it while working for NATO, I had to use British spellings for words like "dialing" ("dialling" in British English), so I was constantly bouncing between British and American spellings for certain terms when first indexing American English texts later on, having to break the British-spelling habits I had formed. ;-D The point of this seemingly pointless digression is that, IMHO, we mentally "compartmentalize" terms into the language contexts that we learn them in and that's how we tend to access them in indexes. Thus, foreign place names with leading articles are accessed by the article because it isn't immediately thought of as such by a native English-speaker, especially one who is unfamiliar with the foreign language. As a native English speaker, I'm also familiar with Spanish, but even so, the article "Los" in "Los Angeles" simply doesn't immediately spring to mind as an article. > Nevertheless, her point about our inconsistency in >sorting leading "the"s in titles and place names is a good one. Why not >resolve it the other way, by _not_ ignoring leading articles in either place >names or titles? Now I've sort of painted myself into a corner and find myself faced with the inconsistency of how we handle foreign place names vs. foreign titles, personal names, etc. beginning with articles. Eeeek! Going along with my "language compartmentalization" theory, I'd be tempted to sort ON the foreign article just as we do for foreign place names though, in practice, I follow the conventions. For example, I'd really want to sort the title "Il Nome de la Rosa" ("The Name of the Rose" which actually was translated into English from Italian) on "Il", because native English-speakers unfamiliar with Italian are not likely to think of "Il" as an article to be ignored. (I would think of it as an article only because I've read the book in both languages, so it resides in both "language compartments" of my mind.) However, if I were indexing a book written in Italian that substantively referred to it, I'd sort on "Nome". So, by an incredibly circular path, I've ended up agreeing with you about changing the conventions. ;-D BTW, in actual practice where I do follow the conventions, I prefer to simply ignore articles in sorting vs. putting them at the end of the entry. Lynn *********************************** Lynn Moncrief (techndex@pacbell.net) TECHindex & Docs Technical and Scientific Indexing *********************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 09:35:29 -0700 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Lynn Moncrief Subject: Re: Web Indexes In-Reply-To: <199804071850.LAA21987@mail-gw3.pacbell.net> At 02:49 PM 4/7/98 -0400, Kevin wrote: >Lynn Moncrief wrote: >> In the same vein, I am hoping that Kevin posts the particulars of the Web >> indexing course he took. Does the course, for example, focus on indexing >> one particular Web site or does it also address creating an index on a >> particular subject with links to a large number of sites on the Web (like >> what I've been working on for my own Web site)? > >I sent all of the URL's to the list yesterday for WebWacker, the web >indexing course, etc. Someone please let me know if it wasn't posted, >because I'm still getting requests for these URL's and everyone should >have received them already. If anyone missed it (I think Lynn might not >have received it, I'm not sure) I'll repost it soon. Hi Kevin, I'm sorry I'm so late getting back to you on this. Yes, I did receive your post with the URLs and truly appreciated it. I'm sorry that I didn't word my message more clearly. :) > >In response to Lynn's question: > >The web indexing course includes web site indexing and also the type of >index that you spoke of (one that is about a particular subject matter >and "points out" to other web sites with that info). > >Sounds like you're working on an interesting site- please send me the >URL if you would when you're through. Thank you. I'll be happy to send you the URL and would love to have the URL to the site you're creating. (I'll add it to the nicely growing set of bookmarks I'm collecting for indexers' Web sites. :-D My own URL will also show up in my sig line when it's ready.) The site I've been working on will be a humongous index to Web sites or individual pages pertaining to cardiovascular diseases and it will be titled "The CardioIndex". I can't believe the enormity of the project I took on, now that I've gotten into it (wondering if I was insane to even conceive it!). It doesn't help that I spent days just indexing part of the enormous American Heart Association site, only to revisit it later to continue indexing it and find that they totally revamped the site. Aiiiish! Anyway, if someone was interested in finding out about depression as a side effect of atenolol, a beta blocker, for example, they'd be able to access it under: atenolol beta blockers. See also specific beta blockers cardio-selective vs. noncardio-selective conditions prescribed for exercise while taking side effects depression as beta blocker side effect heart disease prognosis and post-CABG etc. The reason I came up with the idea for the CardioIndex was because I was getting really tired of the false drops, etc. that I've been getting on the search engines. Also, there is a lot of good stuff that is "invisible" to the search engines because of the various search methods they use. For example, if a search engine uses META tags and if a site designer didn't include an important topic on his/her site in a META tag, it's not found by that search engine. Because of the differing methodologies used by different search engines, I use a lot of them. Plus, I've found many sites by simply "surfing", of course. ;-D But finding "link treasure-troves" via surfing is purely an exercise in serendipity. Furthermore, many of these link "treasure troves" are not organized according to subject and are simply lists of names of other sites. Do we have a lot of ammo for why we need Web indexes or not? ;-D I also remember the frantic panic I was in when I first found out I had heart disease and the hours I spent searching the Web for information. Being on a heart disease list and reading sci.med.cardiology, I've encountered many others in the same frantic panic for information. Thus the idea for the CardioIndex was born. ;-D Of course, creating such a massive index on such a large subject creates interesting problems in overall site design. I keep toying with a variety of ideas to try to help a wide variety of users with different needs to quickly "drill down" to the link(s) that they need. So I'm playing with frames (which I probably won't use because so many folks detest them ;-D) and tables that would be organized according to diseases, treatments, etc. for those who aren't quite sure of exactly what they're looking for. (This means that I would have to do a lot of "classification", but would have to figure out how to do it without creating huge subentry lists in the "visible" index itself. This would mean making those "See also specific..." cross references as clickable links to sublevels in the tables where the classified lists would reside as little indexes in themselves.) All of this is in addition to the usual "letter group" links for those who want to browse the index (or know exactly the term they're looking for). >Have you tried Homesite 3.0 as an HTML editor? See >http://www.allaire.com/ Not yet, but thanks for the URL! I didn't know about it until now. :-) > >As far as Webix is concerned, it's hard to explain how to use it without >actually being there- but basically, you set up the index in a regular >word processor, with a space after the entry and then the URL. > >Ex: dogs http://www.blahblahblah > >and so on...then you use Webix to convert this to a hyperlink. It will >end up just saying: dogs >but it will of course be hyperlink Good! Then I'm on the right track, sort of. Right now, I'm working in Macrex, but have been putting the URLs as lower-level "entries" under the entry they refer to and using phony locators (so Macrex won't complain about the lack of a page number after each entry) that actually refer to "site numbers" I've created in the notebook I'm using while indexing. Of course, I'll have to create one heck of a Word macro to clean this all up so that Webix can convert it. ;-D Unfortunately, this whole project has come to a temporary stop because of nerve injuries (caused by surgeries) to both hands which make writing almost impossible and a lot of typing very difficult. (I have to save my hands for "paying" projects. ;-D) > > >Dwight Walker is developing a Windows 95 version that may be available >in May. It should be a lot easier to work with. I'm looking forward to it! I'm sorry I went on so long about all of this, but maybe I've touched on some issues that other indexers may find interesting enough to discuss. Lynn *********************************** Lynn Moncrief (techndex@pacbell.net) TECHindex & Docs Technical and Scientific Indexing *********************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 09:40:17 -0700 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Jan C. Wright" Subject: Re: birding/dancing in Seattle In-Reply-To: <199804151527.LAA31227@camel23.mindspring.com> I'm checking with a friend who is an avid birder about getting lists for you of good places to go. She also keeps watch on a blue heron colony here nearby, so she might be able to give you information on that as well. Jan Wright At 10:15 AM 4/15/98 -0500, Carol Roberts wrote: >First of all, my apologies to those who can't go to Seattle this year, for >posting this. > >Usually, I post about birdwatching at ASI conferences. I'd still be >interested in that, but I was also wondering whether anyone who's going to >the conference is into ballroom dancing (swing, rumba, foxtrot, etc.). I'm >*not* looking for a date, guys--hubby wouldn't like that one bit--but it >would be fun to go with a group. Anybody interested? > >Cheers, >Carol (dancin' fool) Roberts | I'm not into working out. My >Carol.Roberts@mixcom.com | philosophy: No pain, no pain. >Milwaukee, WI | -- Carol Leifer >http://www.mixweb.com/Roberts.Indexing > >P.S. Well, maybe I am into working out after all. > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 13:21:08 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: CorofinInd Subject: Re: Articles in titles > Michael, you may be right that we do it that way because it's traditional. > But that in itself can be a pretty strong reason for not changing > it--readers won't be looking for those titles in the As and Ts. Considering the number of patrons I see typing titles into our catalog including the "The," I wonder how many are looking in our indexes under "The" also. The convention of inverting an author's name also seems not to have sunk in. Janet Russell ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 13:51:57 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Nancy A. Guenther" Subject: Re: Web Indexes Hi, I'm finding this discussion fascinating since I've created a web site which essentially is an annotated list of links on a hodgepodge of subjects -- whatever happens to be the current subject of conversation in my family. Even though some complain about frames (my son included) I found it an efficient way of providing multiple access points to the information I've collected. I've used WordPerfect's merge capability to store my data on web sites. My form file provides all the tags and a merge operation gives me entries that can be cut & pasted into my HTML files. Sorting my data before merging reduces my workload. I'd second the recommendation for Homesite. It takes away alot of the tedium of tags without losing control of the document details. Since you can flip between the source code & the web page display, it is easy to see how changes impact the appearance. > >>Have you tried Homesite 3.0 as an HTML editor? See >>http://www.allaire.com/ Nancy Guenther nanguent@chesco.com http://www.chesco.com/~nanguent ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 14:34:06 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Charlotte Skuster Subject: Position announcement, Drexel University (fwd) Drexel University's College of Information Science & Technology (IST) invites applications for full-time positions, tenure-track or auxiliary, at the Assistant or Associate Professor level, to begin September 1, 1998. The successful applicant will have responsibility for teaching, curriculum development, and research in one or a combination of the following areas: 1. Knowledge Management Includes topics such as business information resources, competitive intelligence, information services in organizations, corporate intranet design and administration, database management applications, records management, and electronic archives. 2. Information Retrieval/Digital Libraries Includes topics such as information retrieval from textual and multimedia databases, content representation, cataloging and classification, linguistics and natural language systems, and metadata. 3. Youth Services Includes topics such as instructional technology and youth, resources for children and young adults, information-seeking behaviors of children and young adults, social, cultural, and professional issues. The IST view of information is broad, multidisciplinary, and practical. We offer an ALA-accredited MS in library and information science, a BS and an MS in Information Systems, an MS in Software Engineering, and a PhD. We are executing a grant from the Kellogg Foundation that is focused on reinventing education for information professionals. As a result, our master's programs have undergone substantial redesign. With Sloan Foundation grants we have established leadership in online education. The success of our programs is based on faculty teamwork, enterprise, and industry. The successful candidate will have (or almost have) an appropriate PhD degree, with evidence of (or potential for) excellence in teaching and research. with evidence of (or potential for) excellence in teaching and research. Substantial time in relevant practice is also desirable. Please submit a letter of application, curriculum vitae, and the names, addresses, and phone numbers of at least three references to: Gregory Hislop, PhD, Chair, Faculty Search Committee College of Information Science and Technology Drexel University 3141 Chestnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19104. Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. Drexel University is an equal opportunity employer. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 20:28:55 -0400 Reply-To: hwdesign@bellatlantic.net Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Sharon H Sweeney Subject: Re: Articles in titles CorofinInd wrote: > > Michael, you may be right that we do it that way because it's > traditional. > > But that in itself can be a pretty strong reason for not changing > > it--readers won't be looking for those titles in the As and Ts. > But--I'm indexing magazines from the 1850's, and--guess what?!--the TOC alphabetizes "The" under T, "A" under A, etc. For example, in six issues bound into a volume in 1853, there are six "A" entries and fourteen "The" entries. Now that I'm used to the convention, I find articles quite easily in the TOC. What goes around comes around. Sharon Sweeney Hohner Word Design ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 19:10:01 -0700 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Edith Fuller Subject: Re: Articles in titles In-Reply-To: <199804151723.KAA01712@smtp3.teleport.com> Inverting an author's name doesn't always occur to users of indexers or library catalogs, yet we (both adults and students) automatically invert personal names to use that very common index, the telephone book. Edith Fuller On Wed, 15 Apr 1998, CorofinInd wrote: > > Michael, you may be right that we do it that way because it's traditional. > > But that in itself can be a pretty strong reason for not changing > > it--readers won't be looking for those titles in the As and Ts. > > Considering the number of patrons I see typing titles into our catalog > including the "The," I wonder how many are looking in our indexes under "The" > also. > > The convention of inverting an author's name also seems not to have sunk in. > > Janet Russell > Edith M. Fuller efuller@teleport.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:19:02 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Dr DCS Subject: Re: Hymn books As a user of service books and hymnals, the ones I am familiar with have a number of indexes designed for a variety of users. The indexes and their uses are most often: 1) Index of First Lines and yes, there are large groups of hymns under "The" and "O," designed for those of us who can't remember anything else. In many denominations children are required to memorize hymn lyrics as part of their religious training. 2) Index of Authors, Translators and Sources of Hymns for choir directors and musicians as well as the curious 3) Index of Composers and Sources of Tunes again for choir directors and musicians 4) A separate Index of Tunes needed because often the same tune is used with more than one lyric. Last but not least, 5) The Liturgical Index used by clergy predominately in churches whose worship is governed by the calendar of the church year. Certain music is appropriate for certain celebrations or seasons like Lent or Advent. Clergy also use this index to select hymns that emphasize the message or sermon they will deliver on a particular Sunday. This is propoably more than anyone wanted to know about indexes in Service Books and Hymnals but I hope it is helpful. DCS The Perfect Page ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 08:42:04 -0700 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Lynn Moncrief Subject: Re: Articles in titles (was French Titles) In-Reply-To: <199804151639.JAA21720@mail-gw5.pacbell.net> At 08:00 AM 4/15/98 -0700, I wrote: >At 02:02 PM 4/14/98 -0700, Michael wrote: > >>Why not resolve all of these issues by keeping the leading "The" in place >>but filing it in the "Ts"?, which is to say, why shouldn't we sort leading >>articles in titles? I don't do it this way myself, but I am wanting to ask >>"Why shouldn't we?" Many have said this would overload the "As" and the >>"Ts", but how could filing words according to their spelling be considered >>overloading? > >Hi Michael, > >I agree with you about the fear of "overloading" a certain letter of the >alphabet. After all, even in indexes without titles beginning with "The", >there is usually one or more letter groups with a lot of entries, depending >on the subject matter. It just seems to work out that way and no one is >concerned about it. Thus, the concern about "overloading" a certain letter >groups is IMHO inconsequential. I wrote the above without the benefit of a librarian's valuable perspective, which she generously shared with me offlist. The concern about "overloading" a letter group is indeed of great consequence when faced with a card catalogue, bibliographic reference, or online database filled with thousands of entries beginning with the word "The". In view of this, my remarks should only apply to back-of-the-book indexes. And, now that I think this through further, it should apply only to those indexes where you don't have a large number of entries that are titles beginning with "The" or "A". (I can see this being a problem perhaps in indexes to books discussing literature or poetry.) IMHO, we should try to avoid creating situations where the user can become "lost" in the index. This can easily happen if more than one column (especially if a page break intervenes) contains entries starting with the same word or subentries under one main heading. Lynn *********************************** Lynn Moncrief (techndex@pacbell.net) TECHindex & Docs Technical and Scientific Indexing *********************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 11:05:58 -0500 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Robert A. Saigh" Subject: Re: Articles in titles (was French Titles) --------------D7FD261E80FFDDA4246D2570 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit As to the question of articles, I have a simpler solution -- which I am sure everyone probably follows, and it goes like this: No matter which way you decide to index the entry, make sure it only shows up once in the index. Two advantages here: One, the reader has only one place to look. Two, it's easier for you to remember where it is in case you have to change pagination, spelling, etc. So, for instance, to use the poem by Edgar Allan Poe: R Raven, The. See The Raven. T The Raven, 5, 15, 49 Of course, this is just an off-the-top-of-the-head example, but you get the idea. I almost never use articles unless it is part of a proper name, such as The Money Store. I get few requests for author/company entries. All my clients know that if they want that, they must request it in advance. This seems to keep everyone in sync. Hope that helps Rob fugleman@mindspring.com --------------D7FD261E80FFDDA4246D2570 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit As to the question of articles, I have a simpler solution -- which I am sure everyone probably follows, and it goes like this:

        No matter which way you decide to index the entry, make sure it only shows up once in the index.  Two advantages here: One, the reader has only one place to look.  Two, it's easier for you to remember where it is in case you have to change pagination, spelling, etc.

        So, for instance, to use the poem by Edgar Allan Poe:

        R
        Raven, The. See The Raven.

        T
        The Raven, 5, 15, 49

        Of course, this is just an off-the-top-of-the-head example, but you get the idea.  I almost never use articles unless it is part of a proper name, such as The Money Store.  I get few requests for author/company entries.  All my clients know that if they want that, they must request it in advance.  This seems to keep everyone in sync.

        Hope that helps

        Rob
        fugleman@mindspring.com
  --------------D7FD261E80FFDDA4246D2570-- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 12:39:44 -0500 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Kate Kluttz Subject: indexing software comments? I'm considering buying indexing software (specifically, SKY Index Professional) and am trying to find out as much as possible about it before I sink money into it. I'm familiar with the company's website, but if anyone on the list has comments on this software's effectiveness based on their own personal use of it, I'd love to hear from you. Replies may be sent directly to me if you don't want to clutter up the list-- Thank you in advance! K. Kluttz kmkluttz@gslis.utexas.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:07:23 -0400 Reply-To: brocindx@catskill.net Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Kevin A. Broccoli" Organization: Broccoli Indexing Services Subject: Marketing Meeting in NYC New York Chapter of ASI Meeting Notice: Please join us for the next meeting of the New York City Chapter of ASI. Chad Self, of Apple Advertising will be speak on marketing your indexing services. This presentation will include input from ASI members who have agreed to share their marketing experiences. We are also gettting together immediately following the meeting for an Indian buffet at Diwan Grill. Please make reservations by May 7, 1998. For any further information, question, etc. please contact Kevin A. Broccoli (914)985-9465 (e-mail: brocindx@catskill.net) or Janet Mazefsky (212)427-7375 (e-mail: jmazefsky@aol.com DATE: SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1998 PLACE: DONNELL LIBRARY CENTER, NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY 20 W 53RD ST (BETWEEN 5TH & 6TH) NEW YORK, NY TOPIC: MARKETING YOUR INDEXING SERVICES SPEAKER: CHAD SELF TIME: 11AM-1PM FEE: MEMBERS=$5.00 NONMEMBERS=$10.00 LUNCH AT DIWAN GRILL (140 E 48TH, BETWEEN 3RD & LEXINGTON) FOLLOWING MEETING (around 1:30pm) BUFFET IS $13.95 RSVP by May 7,1998 to: Janet Mazefsky Research Institute of America 90 5th Avenue New York, NY 10011 Include your name, member or nonmember, # of people attending, affiliation, whether you will be joining us for lunch at Diwan Grill. Make checks payable to ASI New York Chapter. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:59:45 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Seth A. Maislin" Subject: CHAT: And you thought automatic indexing was hard... I found something today that started me thinking. I decided to share some of those thoughts with you. Here is a recent news story about computer software designed to grade essay answers to test questions. > Bleary-eyed professors may soon find a way to cut down on the time > devoted to test papers with the introduction of a computer program > that can grade essays as well as people do. "It's not for (grading) > grammar or style, but it can be used for exams in anatomy, history or > psychology," said Professor Thomas Landauer, one of the software > developers who has worked at Bell Laboratories and began working on > Intelligent Essay Assessor 10 years ago. The software uses > mathematical analysis to measure the quality of knowledge expressed > in essays. See > http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2553752675-841 My first thought when reading this article was, "Yeah, right." The article itself talks about a high correlation between what professors would give as grades and the grades that the software awards. I thought this would be impossible -- except for one thing. According to this article, the software "contains the information in the textbook used in a course." I've changed my mind; it's not impossible, it's just implausible. The reason that an computer-generated index will never reach that status of a human-generated index is that humans have a theoretically infinite grasp of the subjectivity of language. Computers, on the other hand, only know what they are told (programmed), and therefore will always have some limitation. In addition, humans can broaden their knowledge by learning from analogy, and thus a human-generated index can work around metaphors. Computers can't. I do believe, without question, that an effective index can't be written by a computer. So might a computer be able to grade an essay? The difference between grading an essay and *indexing* an essay is that when grading, the computer doesn't have to create anything. It can analyze the essay using algorithms -- looking for particular vocabulary words, checking sentence structure to determine importance by placement, perhaps even measuring logical progression of argument -- and then spit out a number from 0 to 100. An indexer doesn't have it that easy; the indexer must create a separate, independent document. The other difference is that the is programmed with the entire contents of the particular text book. When writing an index, although the indexer starts with the book in question, the knowledge used to create the index extends way beyond the book's scope. Why else do indexers need references like dictionaries and thesauri? My point is this: maybe it is possible to create a program like the Intelligent Essay Assessor. It's not like that tried to write an Intelligent Ghost Writer or an Intelligent Children's Book Illustrator, right? In comparison, consider this. Software exists that has been programmed with the logic behind J.S. Bach's compositions and can crank out Bach-like preludes -- enough like Bach that computer-generated music has fooled musicologists into thinking they just found centuries-old music. But when push comes to shove, Bach's music has more than just intelligence; it also has an energy behind it -- a soul, perhaps -- that the computer can't mimic. - Seth -- Seth A. Maislin (seth@oreilly.com) O'Reilly & Associates Focus Publishing Services 90 Sherman Street 89 Grove Street Cambridge MA 02140 Watertown MA 02172-2826 (617) 499-7439 phone (617) 924-4428 (617) 661-1116 facsimile smaislin@world.std.com URL: http://www.oreilly.com/~seth co-webmaster, Amer Soc of Indexers: http://www.asindexing.org ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:58:43 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: MaryMort Subject: ASI Kansas-Missouri group meeting reminder AMERICAN SOCIETY OF INDEXERS Kansas-Missouri Group The next meeting of the Kansas-Missouri group will be held on Saturday, April 25, 1998, in Leavenworth, Kansas. The meeting will held at the Center for Army Lessons Learned, Fort Leavenworth, followed by a buffet lunch at the Carroll House Museum (Leavenworth County Historical Society). Topics: - CALL (Center for Army Lessons Learned) Thesaurus - Dedicated book indexing software (demos of Cindex, Macrex and Sky Pro; information on others) There will also be a short business meeting. For more information and directions, please contact me. Deadline for lunch reservations is April 21. -- * Mary Mortensen * marymort@aol.com * Lawrence, Kansas, USA * 785-841-3631 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 16:37:00 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "John R. Sullivan" Subject: Re: CHAT: and you thought... In talking about Bach's music, Seth said it "has more than just intelligence; it also has an energy behind it -- a soul, perhaps -- that the computer can't mimic." I would add: "yet." Until recently, many people held similar opinions about chess -- that it required a human "soul" to truly master the game (as an aside, it's interesting to note that there are prodigies in only three areas: mathematics, music, and chess). Recently, however, the world champion (and arguably one of the greatest chess players of all time) was defeated in tournament play by a chess computer. Now, there is some question as to how well Kasparov was prepared for that tournament, as well as some speculation that he was unnecessarily intimidated by the machine. However, it's clear that computers now play chess as well as the best human chess players. If similar resources and technology were applied to music computers (or indexing computers), it's conceivable that eventually computers could rival humans in composing music (or indexing documents). There's no reason to despair about this, by the way. After all, computers are human creations! John Sullivan Stratus Computer ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:00:07 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Sharon Wright Subject: CHAT: And you thought automatic indexing was hard... -Reply One glaring problem with that program is that it assumes that the person taking the essay would confine themselves to the algorithmic patterns of the book-- that is, that they would use the same language, vocabulary and sentence structure that the book does. This is fine if we want to teach students to do nothing but memorize and regurgitate information, but if a teacher wants his or her students to analyze or apply their information, they would necessarily go beyond the scope of the book, which as you so aptly pointed out, is beyond the scope of the computer to analyze. I guess it depends on the subject and the teacher. I'm kind of old-fashioned in that regard in that I think that education-- even higher education-- is becoming more and more standardized, which doesn't lead to the development of good thinkers, just good memorizors (is that a word?). If an "essay" question is merely asking for regurgitation, what's the point? As far as I'm concerned, an essay question should also demonstrate the student's ability to express themselves in writing and should involve more than the mere recitation of facts. A true essay question should involve discussion and synthesis of material and should demonstrate applied, not recited, knowledge. I'm not sure that I'm making that distinction clear... I guess what I'm saying is that while I may have a problem with this type of software being employed, I have a much bigger problem with the professor who designs a purported "essay" test that can be graded by such software. I'm not sure that they are doing their job if it can! Hey, my liberal arts degree is coming through! :-) -- Sharon W. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:15:39 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Sharon Wright Subject: Re: CHAT: and you thought... -Reply I think you made my point, John. In some areas that lend themselves to mathmatical constructs, such a program would be possible (I don't believe it would be possible for indexing, but that's another topic!). Music is a mathematical construct, and, arguably, so is chess-- it's based on a finite number (admittedly a very big one!) of moves and strategies, which the computer can select using probability analysis. However, I don't think that a computer could do anything with an English literature exam that asks the writer to select the greatest villian in English literature, explain why that character qualifies and defend their position (do any of you recognize the final essay question from the high school AP English exam, circa early '80's? :-) ). In addition to literature, other disciplines that wouldn't lend themselves to this technique: History (comparative or analytical, not recitation of names and dates), sociology, philosophy, art, political science, psychology, anthropology... the list goes on. Basically, anything in the "liberal arts" disciplines. As for feeling threatened... nah. Why bother? Now if someone actually manages to develop artificial intelligence, that might be something to worry about. (Isn't that a favorite science fiction theme: Computers who decide that people are too messy and inefficient, and so decide to eliminate them? If it ever gets to that point, I'll keep my monkey wrench handy! :-) ). What DOES concern me is that some moron manager in the upper eschelons of my company will decide that I can be replaced by a computer and will no longer require my services. I know that a computer can't do my job, but I'm not always convinced that the ones who effectively control my destiny are so convinced. Oh, well. One of the joys of corporate life. -- Sharon W. >>> John R. Sullivan 04/16/98 04:37pm >>> In talking about Bach's music, Seth said it "has more than just intelligence; it also has an energy behind it -- a soul, perhaps -- that the computer can't mimic." I would add: "yet." Until recently, many people held similar opinions about chess -- that it required a human "soul" to truly master the game (as an aside, it's interesting to note that there are prodigies in only three areas: mathematics, music, and chess). Recently, however, the world champion (and arguably one of the greatest chess players of all time) was defeated in tournament play by a chess computer. Now, there is some question as to how well Kasparov was prepared for that tournament, as well as some speculation that he was unnecessarily intimidated by the machine. However, it's clear that computers now play chess as well as the best human chess players. If similar resources and technology were applied to music computers (or indexing computers), it's conceivable that eventually computers could rival humans in composing music (or indexing documents). There's no reason to despair about this, by the way. After all, computers are human creations! John Sullivan Stratus Computer ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 16:52:33 -0500 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Erika Millen Subject: Re[2]: CHAT: and you thought... -Reply John writes: In talking about Bach's music, Seth said it "has more than just intelligence; it also has an energy behind it -- a soul, perhaps -- that the computer can't mimic." I would add: "yet." Hmmnnnnn... I don't know. What about the life experience that inspires a piece? Berlioz's unrequited passion for a Shakespearean actress that inspired "Symphonie Fantastique"? Or the death of Dvorak's one true love, which inspired him to change the ending to his cello concerto? That, in my opinion, in the one great limitation to the power of computers... they don't feel or care about their work the way humans do. Erika Millen Indianapolis ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:13:13 -0700 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "R. Fidel" Subject: Special issue of "Information Retrieval" on IR from Visual Media Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the Journal "Information Retrieval" on "Information Retrieval from Visual Media" As the power of personal computing increases and the networked access to a variety of information resources continues to grow in importance, we are also witnessing the growing importance of information in media other than text. This includes information stored and presented to us as pictures, audio and video. While the amount of this information at our fingertips increases, so also does the importance of effective and efficient access to this information. Information Retrieval (IR) techniques have traditionally been developed for text databases but it is now clear that IR on non-text information is becoming tremendously important. The first real attempts at content access to large amounts of image and video information which we have seen in the literature have tended to adapt techniques developed for text-based IR to these other media. Frequently, many of these techniques are technology- based rather than driven by user needs. This special issue of Information Retrieval will be devoted to information retrieval techniques and applications which operate on visual information including image, picture and video information. We are particularly interested in submissions which address or evaluate visual information retrieval from a user's perspective, focusing on user needs and user requirements in a visual IR scenario. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to: - techniques for visual information retrieval - evaluation of visual information retrieval applications - case studies of visual information retrieval applications - studies of user needs in a visual information retrieval scenario - studies of seeking and searching in visual information retrieval - user-centered studies about metadata for visual media - studies of human indexing of visual media - studies that compare retrieval from visual and text media - studies that combine retrieval from text and visual media - research on relevance judgement in visual information retrieval - relevance feedback in visual information retrieval - clustering in visual information retrieval Editors for this special issue of Information Retrieval are Raya Fidel and Alan F. Smeaton Interested authors should submit 5 copies of their paper to Karen S. Cullen by 31 July, 1998. The format and style for paper submission and the contact address is available at http://www.wkap.nl/journals/ir The proposed publication date is February 1999. This page is available as http://lorca.compapp.dcu.ie/IR-Vis-Media.html. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 15:36:18 -0700 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Jan C. Wright" Subject: Re: CHAT: And you thought automatic indexing was hard... In-Reply-To: <199804161955.PAA00587@camel9.mindspring.com> There's also a difference here between grading, and using the grading process to actively teach. Handing back an essay with a 89 on it is useless. Handing back a marked up essay with points of agreement, where you went wrong, where you need to think more, how to fix that bad grammar - that's teaching. No one should confuse the first instance with the second. So does running essarys through an automatic grader actually accomplish anything valuable for anybody? I don't think so. I would think that the best essays would go beyond the book, would include independent research, and maybe off-the-wall analogies not suggested by the text, but nonetheless showing originality and thinking. These would probably flunk with the machine. Can an automatic essay generator actually evaluate the progression of logic and argument in making a point, and see where leaps in logic have occurred? Don't think so. If the instructor doesn't read the essays, how can he or she have any clue how the student is doing? Likewise, running a book through a concordance builder makes an index (sorta). But what makes an index worthwhile to readers is the active thought and analysis, the structuring, and the bringing in of outside knowledge, synonyms and competitors terms. At 03:59 PM 4/16/98 -0400, Seth A. Maislin wrote: >I found something today that started me thinking. I decided to share some >of those thoughts with you. > >Here is a recent news story about computer software designed >to grade essay answers to test questions. > >> Bleary-eyed professors may soon find a way to cut down on the time >> devoted to test papers with the introduction of a computer program >> that can grade essays as well as people do. "It's not for (grading) >> grammar or style, but it can be used for exams in anatomy, history or >> psychology," said Professor Thomas Landauer, one of the software >> developers who has worked at Bell Laboratories and began working on >> Intelligent Essay Assessor 10 years ago. The software uses >> mathematical analysis to measure the quality of knowledge expressed >> in essays. See >> http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2553752675-841 > > >My first thought when reading this article was, "Yeah, right." The article >itself talks about a high correlation between what professors would give >as grades and the grades that the software awards. I thought this would >be impossible -- except for one thing. According to this article, >the software "contains the information in the textbook used in a course." >I've changed my mind; it's not impossible, it's just implausible. > >The reason that an computer-generated index will never reach that status of >a human-generated index is that humans have a theoretically infinite grasp >of the subjectivity of language. Computers, on the other hand, only know >what they are told (programmed), and therefore will always have some >limitation. In addition, humans can broaden their knowledge by learning from >analogy, and thus a human-generated index can work around metaphors. >Computers can't. I do believe, without question, that an effective index >can't be written by a computer. So might a computer be able to grade an essay? > >The difference between grading an essay and *indexing* an essay is that when >grading, the computer doesn't have to create anything. It can analyze the >essay using algorithms -- looking for particular vocabulary words, checking >sentence structure to determine importance by placement, perhaps even >measuring logical progression of argument -- and then spit out a number from >0 to 100. An indexer doesn't have it that easy; the indexer must create >a separate, independent document. > >The other difference is that the is programmed >with the entire contents of the particular text book. When writing an index, >although the indexer starts with the book in question, the knowledge used >to create the index extends way beyond the book's scope. Why else do indexers >need references like dictionaries and thesauri? > >My point is this: maybe it is possible to create a program like the >Intelligent Essay Assessor. It's not like that tried to write an Intelligent >Ghost Writer or an Intelligent Children's Book Illustrator, right? > >In comparison, consider this. Software exists that has been programmed with >the logic behind J.S. Bach's compositions and can crank out Bach-like preludes >-- enough like Bach that computer-generated music has fooled musicologists into >thinking they just found centuries-old music. But when push comes to shove, >Bach's music has more than just intelligence; it also has an energy behind >it -- a soul, perhaps -- that the computer can't mimic. > >- Seth > >-- >Seth A. Maislin (seth@oreilly.com) > >O'Reilly & Associates Focus Publishing Services >90 Sherman Street 89 Grove Street >Cambridge MA 02140 Watertown MA 02172-2826 >(617) 499-7439 phone (617) 924-4428 >(617) 661-1116 facsimile smaislin@world.std.com > URL: http://www.oreilly.com/~seth > co-webmaster, Amer Soc of Indexers: http://www.asindexing.org > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 20:33:27 -0400 Reply-To: editink@istar.ca Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Heather Ebbs Organization: Editor's Ink Subject: Technical indexing reference Reference help please. For general book indexing, I think of Nancy Mulvany's _Indexing Books_ and Hans Wellisch's _Indexing from A to Z_ as definitive references. Can anyone tell me a definitive reference for technical indexing? (A student did recently show me a book she found useful, and I jotted down the book info on a scrap of paper that has since vanished.) TIA Heather Ebbs ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 20:29:55 -0500 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Craig Brown Subject: Re: Technical indexing reference On 4/16/98 19:33 Heather Ebbs wrote: >Reference help please. > >For general book indexing, I think of Nancy Mulvany's _Indexing Books_ >and Hans Wellisch's _Indexing from A to Z_ as definitive references. Can >anyone tell me a definitive reference for technical indexing? (A student >did recently show me a book she found useful, and I jotted down the book >info on a scrap of paper that has since vanished.) > >TIA >Heather Ebbs > You probably saw _The Art of Indexing_ by Larry S. Bonura. Wiley Technical Communication Library, New York, 1994. Craig Brown ========================================== The Last Word lastword@i1.net Indexing (314)352-9094 www.i1.net/~lastword ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 20:37:55 -0400 Reply-To: roses@internetmedia.com Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: ROSE DEPOT Subject: Don't Forget- Secretaries Day is April 22!! Show your loyal secretaries and devoted assistants how much you appreciate their hard work and continuing dedication by sending them 50 exquisite, longstemmed white roses. Beautifully packaged with a personal greeting for only $69.00! Hand delivered in time to brighten the holiday! Let Rose Depot, the leader in WWW rose delivery, show you how easy it is: http://www.rosedepotinc.com Click Here! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 14:10:35 +1000 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Liz Speck Subject: Re: ADMIN HELP Could who ever is minding (indexing) this list stop all mail to my e-mail address please I have a spammer who is creating havoc and will probably have to change my address so before things bounce out of control I will have to say goodbye for a while Liz lugano@internex.net.au > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 09:03:40 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Snedrow Subject: Re. Technical indexing reference Hello, I've been indexing since 1991, and have collected a number of books that can be helpful for technical indexing, but wonder whether you were thinking of a specific type of indexing. The Society of Indexers (British) publishes a series of monographs that are useful for specific fields (bibliography, legal, medical), while there are other books that are helpful for computer-related publications. If you are interested in specifics on any of these books, let me know and I can post them here or e-mail the information to you. Sue Nedrow ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 09:31:43 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Pmauer Subject: Technical indexing reference For general book indexing, I think of Nancy Mulvany's _Indexing Books_ and Hans Wellisch's _Indexing from A to Z_ as definitive references. Can anyone tell me a definitive reference for technical indexing? (A student did recently show me a book she found useful, and I jotted down the book info on a scrap of paper that has since vanished.) Hi Heather, You might want to take a look at _The Art of Indexing_ by Larry Bonura (ISBN 0-471-01449-4). As the jacket says, he "leads you through the process of creating a high-quality index for your technical book, document, or report." I ordered it through amazon.com (for $18.87 + S&H) and got it in a few days. Peg Mauer | Manager of STC Indexing SIG Communication Link | co-leader of Western NY ASI chapter Indexing, Technical Writing | phone: (518) 359-8616 Piercefield, NY 12973 | fax: (518) 359-8235 http://members.aol.com/Pmauer <-- See my award-winning web site! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 09:47:59 -0400 Reply-To: editink@istar.ca Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Heather Ebbs Organization: Editor's Ink Subject: Re: Re. Technical indexing reference Sue Nedrow asked if I was looking for a tech reference in a specific field. Yes: telcommunications in general. Thanks for the answers so far. Heather E. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 10:05:23 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Cynthia Bertelsen Subject: Re: Technical indexing reference At 09:31 AM 4/17/98 EDT, Pmauer wrote: >Hi Heather, > >You might want to take a look at _The Art of Indexing_ by Larry Bonura (ISBN >0-471-01449-4). As the jacket says, he "leads you through the process of >creating a high-quality index for your technical book, document, or report." I >ordered it through amazon.com (for $18.87 + S&H) and got it in a few days. Heather, You might also want to look at Read Me First: A Style Guide for the Computer Industry (Sun Technical Publications, 1996, ISBN 0134553470, $29.95)--there is an entire chapter (30 pages) devoted to the indexing of computer and technical manuals. As a matter of fact, I believe that someone mentioned this book recently on INDEX-L. ***************************************** Cynthia D. Bertelsen Freelance Indexer Bertelsen Indexing Services cbertel@usit.net Web page: http://www.vt.edu:10021/B/bertel/ndx.html ***************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 12:54:52 -0400 Reply-To: brocindx@catskill.net Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Kevin A. Broccoli" Organization: Broccoli Indexing Services Subject: My web site! Check out my new web site! http://members.aol.com/tennwords/BroccoliInformationManagement/BIM.html Any ideas on improvement? Kevin A. Broccoli Broccoli Information Management brocindx@catskill.net ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 13:19:25 -0400 Reply-To: editink@istar.ca Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Heather Ebbs Organization: Editor's Ink Subject: THANKS: Technical indexing reference Thanks to everyone for their help with the tech ref information. Heather E. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 08:28:01 -0700 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Lynn Moncrief Subject: Re: CHAT: And you thought automatic indexing was hard... In-Reply-To: <199804161955.MAA09562@mail-gw6.pacbell.net> At 03:59 PM 4/16/98 -0400, Seth wrote: >I found something today that started me thinking. I decided to share some >of those thoughts with you. > >Here is a recent news story about computer software designed >to grade essay answers to test questions. Plus, you can't even improve your grade by sleeping with the disks! ;-D (Sorry, I couldn't resist, and no slur is intended against any professors.) Lynn *********************************** Lynn Moncrief (techndex@pacbell.net) TECHindex & Docs Technical and Scientific Indexing *********************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 14:07:43 -0700 Reply-To: Elinor Lindheimer Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Elinor Lindheimer Subject: Re: benefits of membership of various organizations Replies from perusing the 256 emails downloaded after ten days away: >2...I have seen some indexers listed in LMP. Do any of those indexers get any business. Being in LMP was a total waste, but it didn't cost anything. >3...getting any business from being listed in the Indexer Services of ASI? Absolutely the best--especially as you get to know people and they get to know you. Being active in ASI is the best way to increase your indexing business. By "being active" I mean volunteering, working, being there for your fellow members. Work in your local chapter first--it's the best training ground for leadership. > >4...getting any business from membership of local chamber of commerce? That depends where you live, and what types of businesses are members. Couldn't hurt if you have the money. Elinor Lindheimer Past President, ASI elinorl@mcn.org ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 23:15:58 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Locatelli Subject: Re: Articles in titles (was French Titles) In a message dated 98-04-16 12:11:35 EDT, fugleman@mindspring.com writes: >No matter which way you decide to index the entry, >make sure it only shows up once in the index. Two >advantages here: One, the reader has only one place to >look. Two, it's easier for you to remember where it is in >case you have to change pagination, spelling, etc. > So, for instance, to use the poem by Edgar Allan > Poe: > > R > Raven, The. See The Raven. > > T > The Raven, 5, 15, 49 > > Of course, this is just an off-the-top-of-the-head > example, but you get the idea. I almost never use articles > unless it is part of a proper name, such as The Money > Store. The problem with only listing the title once is that it forces more work on the reader. If readers think of the "wrong" entry, they must spend time flipping to the "right" one after finding the "see" reference. So it does the readers a service to double post. Note, too, that "Raven, The. See The Raven" actually takes up more space than if you entered "Raven, The, 5, 15, 49." So you are not saving any space if space is an issue. On the other hand, if there are many subentries under "The Raven, " then there is more justification for the cross reference rather than double posting all the subentries. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with using double entries if it helps the reader. Fred Leise Between the Lines Indexing and Editorial Services ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 08:56:42 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Richard Munro Subject: Any tips? Hi! Here's an easy one! I have recently gained accredited status from The Society of Indexers (British). I am now trying to find work (aren't we all?). My specialist areas are Defenc(s)e, Aviation, Maritime, South Atlantic, Public Transport and Theatre(er). Trading under the name of RM Editorial Services (I also offer copy-editing and proof-reading services)= I have written/faxed/e-mailed/rung and spoken to various publishers in thes= e fields to little avail. Whilst I have commissions to index a transport journal and am sub-editing a trade magazine, I would like to expand my portfolio. Can anyone point me in the right direction? = Richard Munro ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 11:15:53 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Lawrenc846 Subject: Amharic and Falasha names Hello everyone, I got a rush job, it came in yesterday and needs to be posted Monday. Doing the indexing for this small, very readable volume is not very difficult. But I do have one problem for which I need help. There are many Falasha and other Ethiopian names. My question is how does one alphabetize them? Is it last name first, or by first name? Or is there some other order for three name individuals? The volume itself is of no help, sometimes the context suggests one way, sometimes another. I would contact the Library of Congress but unfortunately the appropriate department of the Library of Congress is closed on the weekend. Nor could I find any suggestion for Ethiopian languages in the Chicago Manuel of Style. Examples of names are: David Mehrate Tsagai Zaudie Theodoros Gete Addisu Messele Avraham Nagosa Meskie Sibru-Siran Abba Sabra Zara Ya'eqob Mengistu Haile Mariam Please feel free to post any comments to the list but because I receive personal E-Mail much quicker than responses via the List, could any respondents please also send me an E-Mail directly. Lawrence H. Feldman NAXCIT@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 12:37:58 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: tobiah r waldron Subject: Re: Amharic and Falasha names Lawrence, Decide on a uniform method of representing these names, and include an explanatory note in the index for the reader. TobiahRW@juno.com On Sat, 18 Apr 1998 11:15:53 EDT Lawrenc846 writes: >Hello everyone, > > I got a rush job, it came in yesterday and needs to be posted >Monday. >Doing the indexing for this small, very readable volume is not very >difficult. >But I do have one problem for which I need help. There are many >Falasha and >other Ethiopian names. My question is how does one alphabetize them? >Is it >last name first, or by first name? Or is there some other order for >three >name individuals? The volume itself is of no help, sometimes the >context >suggests one way, sometimes another. I would contact the Library of >Congress >but unfortunately the appropriate department of the Library of >Congress is >closed on the weekend. Nor could I find any suggestion for Ethiopian >languages in the Chicago Manuel of Style. > > Examples of names are: > > David Mehrate > Tsagai Zaudie > Theodoros Gete > Addisu Messele > Avraham Nagosa > Meskie Sibru-Siran > Abba Sabra > Zara Ya'eqob > Mengistu Haile Mariam > >Please feel free to post any comments to the list but because I >receive >personal E-Mail much quicker than responses via the List, could any >respondents please also send me an E-Mail directly. > > Lawrence H. Feldman > NAXCIT@aol.com > _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 13:10:49 EST Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Lenore Relihan Subject: Re[2]: Amharic and Falasha names Lawrence -- I don't think a uniform approach is really possible without some research. The listings of delegate names in the Permanent Missions to the United Nations show the surname in all caps. A quick look at this indicates that the surname usually appears last. You would therefore invert most Ethiopian names. However, I have never seen Mengistu Haile Mariam inverted in an index. Press reports refer to him as "Mengistu." This suggests to me that the name picture may be a complex one. lrelihan@newsbank.com ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: Amharic and Falasha names Author: Indexer's Discussion Group at Internet-Gateway Date: 04/18/1998 12:46 PM Lawrence, Decide on a uniform method of representing these names, and include an explanatory note in the index for the reader. TobiahRW@juno.com On Sat, 18 Apr 1998 11:15:53 EDT Lawrenc846 writes: >Hello everyone, > > I got a rush job, it came in yesterday and needs to be posted >Monday. >Doing the indexing for this small, very readable volume is not very >difficult. >But I do have one problem for which I need help. There are many >Falasha and >other Ethiopian names. My question is how does one alphabetize them? >Is it >last name first, or by first name? Or is there some other order for >three >name individuals? The volume itself is of no help, sometimes the >context >suggests one way, sometimes another. I would contact the Library of >Congress >but unfortunately the appropriate department of the Library of >Congress is >closed on the weekend. Nor could I find any suggestion for Ethiopian >languages in the Chicago Manuel of Style. > > Examples of names are: > > David Mehrate > Tsagai Zaudie > Theodoros Gete > Addisu Messele > Avraham Nagosa > Meskie Sibru-Siran > Abba Sabra > Zara Ya'eqob > Mengistu Haile Mariam > >Please feel free to post any comments to the list but because I >receive >personal E-Mail much quicker than responses via the List, could any >respondents please also send me an E-Mail directly. > > Lawrence H. Feldman > NAXCIT@aol.com > _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 14:19:04 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Cynthia Bertelsen Subject: Re: Amharic and Falasha names Hi Larry, Digging through some of my files on personal names, I found an article (Sushma Gupta, "Cataloging Ethiopian personal names," Cataloging and Classification Quarterly vol 14 (2): 81-89+, 1991). Unfortunately, I do not have the extensive appendices which apparently are attached to the article, with long lists of names. But, according to the author, who is Ethiopian (note that the name is the way it is written in the byline), Ethiopian names are to be cataloged (alphabetized) in the order in which they appear in the document, with no inversion and no punctuation. Ethiopians do not use surnames; the elements of Ethiopian names are title, personal name, father's name (in that order). (Titles are RAS = head or prince, Lij = used for sons of nobles, Abba = father--used for priests, Abuna = Bishop, etc.) There also are a number of complicated compound name issues, due to transliteration. Ethiopian names are supposed to be all in caps, too. Sushma Gupta does say that titles must be handled in the manner of AACR2 rules. It looks like you have one title, in Abba Sabra, on your list. Depending upon one's time limits, checking LC's online catalog might be helpful in verifying the order of names, if the names in question are associated with bibliographic records (e.g., a person who has been written about or who has written a work that has been cataloged). One more thing just for the record: in response to another posting on this question, I don't agree that one should arbitrarily decide on one's own on a way to handle names from another culture. At 11:15 AM 4/18/98 EDT, Lawrenc846 wrote: >Hello everyone, > > I got a rush job, it came in yesterday and needs to be posted Monday. >Doing the indexing for this small, very readable volume is not very difficult. >But I do have one problem for which I need help. There are many Falasha and >other Ethiopian names. My question is how does one alphabetize them? ***************************************** Cynthia D. Bertelsen Freelance Indexer Bertelsen Indexing Services cbertel@usit.net Web page: http://www.vt.edu:10021/B/bertel/ndx.html ***************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 15:40:40 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: DStaub11 Subject: Re: Amharic and Falasha names Cynthia wrote: << One more thing just for the record: in response to another posting on this question, I don't agree that one should arbitrarily decide on one's own on a way to handle names from another culture. >> I would handle this, after making a good effort to find correct information on name order, by querying the editor. I explain what I did in the index (which is usually to follow the text when it gives me information and otherwise try to find some consistency) and recommend strongly that the author be asked to scan the names to make sure they're correct. Do Mi ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 16:48:31 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: STortora Subject: desk question Hello all, What kind of a desk (inexpensive) do you use when indexing. I tend to have problems with my neck and can't look down for long periods of time? Thanks, Sue ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 17:49:01 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: SHughes512 Subject: Re: desk question In a message dated 98-04-18 16:49:11 EDT, you write: << What kind of a desk (inexpensive) do you use when indexing. I tend to have problems with my neck and can't look down for long periods of time? >> That's a great question. We wondered how other indexers handle their papers. We use a small drafting table. It's about 2 1/2 feet square. It can be adjusted up and down and it tilts with a rim at the bottom to catch our markers and pens. I mark text there (I still do that) and I can move the keyboard over there and when I get stiff in one position I change things around a bit. The one we have is a student variety so it was inexpensive. Sharon Hughes (and Alun) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 21:48:52 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: DStaub11 Subject: Re: desk question << What kind of a desk (inexpensive) do you use when indexing. I tend to have problems with my neck and can't look down for long periods of time? >> I got one built quite a few years ago now, but I might have been able to find a cheap one of the right proportions. The desk is at typing height for me (forearms horizontal when sitting with my feet flat on the floor). Because I'm very short, that's at the same height as the children-sized tables in my partner's school! (One reason I had it made to order.) I index at the computer, so I have my keyboard in front of me, the monitor up on a (built-to- order) shelf, and a slanted board with a deep ledge between the keyboard and the monitor for my pages. This is ergonomically very good, because pages and monitor are in line and I only have to move my eyes. Don't make a setup in which you're turning to the side all the time! The desk is an "L" with writing space on my right; I swivel that way if I'm paying bills or doing other things by hand. Good luck! Do Mi ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 21:04:41 -0500 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Joanne E. Clendenen" Organization: AfterWords Indexing Services Subject: Re: desk question Guess what? A door! You bet! When my husband was finishing his Master's thesis after all our furniture had been moved out, back in 1986, he bought a solid unfinished door and two sawhorses. We always thought of it as a temporary thing, but here I am, twelve years later, still using it. I still haven't found the time to put a finish on the door, either. I did see a neat version of this same idea, with two-drawer file cabinets instead of sawhorses. I might graduate to that soon. I actually have a real desk at right angles to my "door", but the computer is here on the door. My monitor is at just the right height this way, as is my keyboard. My CPU sits off to the side. There's plenty of room for page proof, etc. I doubt it would cost much, either. I wouldn't give it up for one of those dinky workstations for anything. Joanne --=20 AfterWords Indexing Services Joanne E. Clendenen email: jbclend@bigfoot.com http://www.flash.net/~jbclend ---------------- "I=92m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it." Thomas Jefferson ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 07:37:24 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Nmbenton Subject: Re: desk question I bought an inexpensive white roll table at the Door Store. It has one shelf for reference books and a top exactly the right height for papers. I roll it into the closet when my office becomes a guest room! Nell ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 21:24:59 +1000 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Jonathan Jermey and Glenda Browne Subject: Re: Web Indexes Lynn's example below highlights one of the major problems with indexing the Web - away from your own site there is no guarantee that the items you are indexing will remain unchanged, remain at that address, or remain on the Web at all. So for every Web index started there have to be the committment and resources to keep it going. New links have to be added, and old ones removed. Although some aspects of this may be automatable, others must be done manually. What are your experiences of maintaining Web indexes? It seems to me that we really have to start thinking about alternatives. I wonder whether an excellent classification scheme, along with free-text searching of each page, might not be a more practical alternative. No matter how ideal we think having indexes is, the reality is that most of them will be out-of-date at any given time. >>Lynn Moncrief wrote: > >The site I've been working on will >be a humongous index to Web sites or individual pages pertaining to >cardiovascular diseases and it will be titled "The CardioIndex". I can't >believe the enormity of the project I took on, now that I've gotten into it >(wondering if I was insane to even conceive it!). It doesn't help that I >spent days just indexing part of the enormous American Heart Association >site, only to revisit it later to continue indexing it and find that they >totally revamped the site. Aiiiish! > >Of course, creating such a massive index on such a large subject creates >interesting problems in overall site design. I keep toying with a variety >of ideas to try to help a wide variety of users with different needs to >quickly "drill down" to the link(s) that they need. So I'm playing with >frames (which I probably won't use because so many folks detest them ;-D) >and tables that would be organized according to diseases, treatments, etc. >for those who aren't quite sure of exactly what they're looking for. (This >means that I would have to do a lot of "classification", but would have to >figure out how to do it without creating huge subentry lists in the >"visible" index itself. This would mean making those "See also specific..." >cross references as clickable links to sublevels in the tables where the >classified lists would reside as little indexes in themselves.) All of this >is in addition to the usual "letter group" links for those who want to >browse the index (or know exactly the term they're looking for). This sounds like an immense job Lynn, and all for the love of it! Keep us posted - it sounds interesting and innovative. Glenda. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 15:22:19 +0100 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "J.A Binns" Subject: Re: desk question I use an old wooden table which was being thrown out by my children's school - they were getting rid of them to replace them with computer desks! I have an adjustable office chair so I can alter my sitting height. I find that having the monitor on top of the computer brings that to the right eye-level height. But the most useful item of desk-top furniture is the paper holder that I have. This screws to the back edge of the table and has an arm like an angle-poise lamp, but instead of a lamp it has a sort of clip-board with a ledge at the bottom on which to prop the proofs I am indexing, or any other papers. The beauty of this is that it can be adjusted to any position, height or angle, and I have it virtually next to the monitor, so that I just have to move my eyes from side to side and never have to look down or sideways at all. Margaret Binns ============================ Margaret Binns Indexer 20 Hangleton Manor Close Hove, Sussex, BN3 8AJ, UK Tel: 01273 420844 binns@hangleton.u-net.com ============================ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Apr 1998 10:52:21 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: NAXCIT Subject: Re Amharic and Falasha names I want to thank everyone who replied on my query regarding Amharic and Falasha names. I decided to follow the suggestion of Cynthia Bertelsen as per the article of Sushma Gupta, "Cataloging Ethiopian personal names," Cataloging and Classification Quarterly vol 14 (2): 81-89+, 1991 and alphabetize in the order in which they appear in the document, with no inversion and no punctuation. I agree that one shouldn't arbitrarily decide on one's own on a way to handle names from another culture. I agree that editor and authors are primary authorities as to what is correct but, given time limitations, consulting them was not an option. Using the text to determine the naming pattern is more difficult than usual in this case because the text has two authors, one being an American and the other an Ethiopian and usage in the text suggests that both American and Ethiopian naming patterns were used, haphazardly, in it for Ethiopian names. Looking at the ultimate users for the text, since it is addressed toward people having some interest in Ethiopian and Falasha culture, I think it is appropriate to use the naming pattern indigenous to those cultures, hence the rationale for following the Sushma Gupta article. Lawrence H. Feldman NAXCIT@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 01:03:20 +1000 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Dwight Walker Subject: Re: Web Indexes Sure there are hassles with the brokenness of the Web but this does not stop its usefulness. It is sad that we just ditch Web indexing because there is too much out there that is changing to bother. My approach is to use a tool on a Web site or topical area with link checkers to keep it up to date. No-one not even Webmasters can do any better than that. The point of Web indexing is that it is pointing at a moving target. The only really viable alternative is meta data. That involves embedded indexing. I am going to move on anyway in Web indexing despite very few Australians getting behind it. Thank God for the Yankees... We Aussies need to take a few risks to make sure we don't get left behind. At 21:24 19/04/98 +1000, you wrote: >Lynn's example below highlights one of the major problems with indexing the >Web - away from your own site there is no guarantee that the items you are >indexing will remain unchanged, remain at that address, or remain on the Web >at all. So for every Web index started there have to be the committment and >resources to keep it going. New links have to be added, and old ones >removed. Although some aspects of this may be automatable, others must be >done manually. > ---------------------------------------------------------- Dwight Walker, Sydney, Australia tel +61-2-98960286, mob 0412-405727, fax +61-2-97772058 ICQ No. 4631678, handle: wwwalker (www.mirabilis.com) WWWalker Web Development: http://www.wwwalker.com.au Australian Society of Indexers: http://www.zeta.org.au/~aussi Sydney Linux Users Group http://www.slug.org.au Waverley Randwick Philharmonic http://www.wwwalker.com.au/wrps.html ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 16:16:23 +1000 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Dwight Walker Subject: Web indexing - my viewpoint I feel that traditional indexers seem to overlook the potential of indexing Web sites or topics on the Web. They hedge around the difficulty of getting data into the system or how to manage broken links. That can be solved with adequate software. I am hoping to develop a tool that will allow links to be checked and good quality classification to be built up on the Web. I know this is unfamiliar territory for most of us. The Internet was only really popular from about 1995 onwards. I feel though that to let go of a golden opportuntiy to expand your skillbase very shortsighted. Librarians have stuffed up many times over by letting technologists get ahead. As a techno-librarian I feel I can break out of this mould. I am going to make my own techno-indexer niche. Join me if you will. If there are inadequate computer skills out there surely education is the key not putting your head in the sand. My little company WWWalker Web Development is getting into it and from all indications there are many opportunities coming up now compared with 2 years ago. I am not willing to let others just walk over me because I pioneered this and not get some benefit from it. So I started my own venture. This is independent of Australian Society of Indexers although I built much of my ideas when I was their Webmaster. I feel this technology should be accessible to anyone in the world. Hence although I am an Australian I am eager to get others including Americans and British to take on the learning needed to get themselves ready for the big amount of Web indexing that will come around the corner. Sure we will have to do some ducking and weaving but that is the nature of a new technology. If you are interested in giving it a go, please contact me at: dwight@zip.com.au. I am considering forming a Web indexing division in my company to which some of you may be interested in subcontracting. Most people would say I am a patient teacher and that I allow people to ask me questions to get their mind around this stuff. I just ask that you not ignore it. I sense a bogging down in Australia about new technology. People in America seem to be more willing to give it ago. I cannot help this so I am adapting to the way things are and moving with the Americans now. All the best Australians. Americans I am glad to work with you. Dwight WWWalker Web Development ---------------------------------------------------------- Dwight Walker, Sydney, Australia tel +61-2-98960286, mob 0412-405727, fax +61-2-97772058 ICQ No. 4631678, handle: wwwalker (www.mirabilis.com) WWWalker Web Development: http://www.wwwalker.com.au Australian Society of Indexers: http://www.zeta.org.au/~aussi Sydney Linux Users Group http://www.slug.org.au Waverley Randwick Philharmonic http://www.wwwalker.com.au/wrps.html ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 10:20:14 +0100 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "J.A Binns" Subject: Re: Web indexing - my viewpoint In-Reply-To: At 04:16 PM 4/20/98 +1000, Dwight wrote: > >I sense a bogging down in Australia about new technology. People in America >seem to be more willing to give it ago. I cannot help this so I am adapting >to the way things are and moving with the Americans now. All the best >Australians. Americans I am glad to work with you. What about the British? My main feeling is that I am rather bewildered by all the jargon, and I am not sure how to educate myself in the basics. I am certainly hoping to take Dwight's course at some time in the future though. Margaret Binns ============================ Margaret Binns Indexer 20 Hangleton Manor Close Hove, Sussex, BN3 8AJ, UK Tel: 01273 420844 binns@hangleton.u-net.com ============================ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 02:58:44 -0700 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Thomas P. Copley" Subject: ANNOUNCE> Dynamic Duo Workshop (XML and Dynamic HTML) +-----------------------------------------------+ | THE DYNAMIC DUO WORKSHIP: XML & DYNAMIC HTML | +-----------------------------------------------+ The Dynamic Duo Workshop: XML & Dynamic HTML is a six week workshop conducted entirely via email and the World Wide Web (WWW). It introduces the beginner and somewhat more advanced user to the eXtensibe Markup Language (XML) and dynamic HyperText Markup Language (HTML). A quiet revolution has been taking place that will provide the Internet's Web surfing millions with enormous amounts of new functionality, and will transform how we use the Web. The dual agents of change that are creating this watershed are the newly minted XML and a variety of client-side scripting techniques known collectively as dynamic HTML. XML is the next logical step beyond HTML as it allows the author to mark up a document's content instead of merely the structure of its presentation. XML is actually a metalanguage that enables Web authors to invent and use their own specialized markup languages. For example, a commercial site may incorporate tags such as or in an online catalog. Similarly, a markup language for chemists may use the tags and . Once content is tagged using one of these XML-based specialized languages, it can be read by a program or script to provide functionality and automation that previously could only be achieved with great difficulty. It also opens the door to a myriad of specialized search engines that will now be able to find that needle of information you are seeking in the World Wide Haystack. Both the upcoming version of Netscape Navigator 5.0 and the current version of Microsoft Internet Explorer (4.0) support XML and dynamic HTML. HTML and XML can be blended almost imperceptibly to open up access by scripts and programs, not only to the appearance of Web pages, but also to their structure and content. This greatly empowers authors to create Web pages with interactive, dynamic features. These client-side scripts run on the user's own computer, thereby eliminating the need for a slow round trip to the Web server. Another facet of this new dynamicism is style sheets. The style of Web pages can conveniently be controlled by Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) or the new eXtensibe Style Sheets (XSL). Dynamic HTML utilizes style sheets to assert fine-grain control over the exact appearance and precise placement of Web page elements. Thus Web authors are assured a high degree of selectivity and flexibility in the dynamic effects they can create. Content of the Workshop The Dynamic Duo Workshop will help you to efficiently and effectively use both XML and dynamic HTML to turn your Web pages into a stand-out, full-featured site, and to know how to gain maximum advantage from each technology. During the workshop you will learn how to: * add functionality and interactivity to Web pages using dynamic HTML; * use dynamic HTML to compliment server applications, including generating HTML presentations based on server output in XML; * position layers and elements on the fly in order to turn static Web pages into an exciting interactive experience; * format Web pages or data in XML in order to give search engines access to a wealth of contextual information; * take advantage of vertical, horizontal and industry-based XML languages, as well as general, broad-market languages such as Channel Definition Format (CDF) and Resource Description Framework (RDF); * use XML-based applications that can query several database servers, combine their results, and create a Web-ready XML document. How To Sign Up A six week session of the Dynamic Duo Workshop is scheduled to begin on Monday, May 4, 1998 and will conclude on Friday, June 12, 1998. The cost of the workshop is $30 US.** To sign up for the workshop, please send an email message to the address: majordomo@arlington.com and in the body of the message, place: subscribe duo In order to gain maximum advantage from the Dynamic Duo Workshop, it will be necessary to have either an up-to-date version of Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. ** NOTE: While Make the Link and Tune In the Net Workshops are not prerequisites for the Dynamic Duo Workshop (DDW), both provide complimentary information that may also be of interest to many participants in DDW. A discounted price for DDW is available for past participants in these workshops or for those who now wish to take them. For further information about the discount, please see: http://www.bearfountain.com/arlington/duo-discount.html About the Author The workshop leader, Thomas P. Copley, Ph.D., has successfully taught several on-line courses in the past, including most recently, Tune In the Net Workshop , first offered in 1997, Make the Link Workshop , introduced in 1995, and the Go-pher-it Workshop in 1994. He has been actively involved in on-line teaching for more than a decade, and has been a consultant to Apple Computer, Inc. . He is also one of the founders of the Electronic University, and has been on the faculty of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and Washington State University . He is co-moderator of the online-ed mailing list. ________________________________________________________________ THOMAS P. COPLEY tcopley@arlington.com Dynamic Duo Workshop www.bearfountain.com/arlington/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 06:28:33 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Nancy A. Guenther" Subject: Re: Web indexing - my viewpoint > >If you are interested in giving it a go, please contact me at: >dwight@zip.com.au. I am considering forming a Web indexing division in my >company to which some of you may be interested in subcontracting. Hi Dwight, I agree with your assessment of our need to continue learning. The world is moving too quickly for us to ignore the changes. I'm certainly interested in pursuing web indexing. My complication is that currently my book indexing has me sufficiently busy that my marketing time, or planning time to consider how to market in this new field is minimal. I have listings in verious sites for self-employment, free-lancers, etc. all listing my web site but have had no requests for assistance. Perhaps you remember my web site from your first year of providing awards. It tied for 3rd. It was (and is) a site of annotated links to information I have needed. I'd be interested in what options you are considering for subcontracting if you make that possibility a reality. Nancy Guenther nanguent@chesco.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 10:32:50 -0500 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Linda Sloan Subject: Re: Web indexing - my viewpoint You wrote: > >I feel that traditional indexers seem to overlook the potential of indexing >Web sites or topics on the Web. They hedge around the difficulty of getting >data into the system or how to manage broken links. That can be solved with >adequate software. I am hoping to develop a tool that will allow links to be >checked and good quality classification to be built up on the Web. > >I know this is unfamiliar territory for most of us. The Internet was only >really popular from about 1995 onwards. > This sounds interesting, I will be interested in how it develops. >I feel though that to let go of a golden opportuntiy to expand your >skillbase very shortsighted. Librarians have stuffed up many times over by >letting technologists get ahead. As a techno-librarian I feel I can break >out of this mould. I am going to make my own techno-indexer niche. Join me >if you will. > I understand as I have an MLS but haven't practiced traditional librarianship for years. I want to break-out of the mold too. >If there are inadequate computer skills out there surely education is the key not putting your head in the sand. > >My little company WWWalker Web Development is getting into it and from all >indications there are many opportunities coming up now compared with 2 years >ago. I am not willing to let others just walk over me because I pioneered >this and not get some benefit from it. So I started my own venture. This is >independent of Australian Society of Indexers although I built much of my >ideas when I was their Webmaster. I feel this technology should be >accessible to anyone in the world. > >Hence although I am an Australian I am eager to get others including >Americans and British to take on the learning needed to get themselves ready >for the big amount of Web indexing that will come around the corner. > Education is the hardest part for this kind of work. What do you need to know to do good web indexing? Answering that question is not only challenging but the answer keeps changing with technology. >Sure we will have to do some ducking and weaving but that is the nature of a new technology. > >If you are interested in giving it a go, please contact me at: >dwight@zip.com.au. I am considering forming a Web indexing division in my company to which some of you may be interested in subcontracting. > Put me on the list. I may also reconsider taking your class since it's the only one I know of in the world. Just realize that some of the material I'd be fairly familiar with. >Most people would say I am a patient teacher and that I allow people to ask >me questions to get their mind around this stuff. I just ask that you not ignore it. > >I sense a bogging down in Australia about new technology. People in America >seem to be more willing to give it ago. I cannot help this so I am adapting >to the way things are and moving with the Americans now. All the best >Australians. Americans I am glad to work with you. > >Dwight >WWWalker Web Development I would like to say one thing regarding ASI and AUSI regarding web indexing. The web index contest and material regarding Internet and electronic indexing was why I joined AUSI in the first place. You seem to have more of it than we do (or did, we may be picking up more on it now than when I first joined). I'm planning to go to the Seattle ASI conference. I understand some AUSI people will be there. I will be nitpicking the brains of anyone involved in Internet indexing. Let me know if you will be going, I know it's a long trip for any of you there and I appreciate the effort you and others take to teach and educate those of us who are trying to break into it too. Linda Sloan ************************************************** Linda Kenny Sloan Information Universe Editorial services for the space industry Editing, indexing, proofreading email indexer@ix.netcom.com URL http://informationuniverse.com ************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 11:38:01 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Snedrow Subject: Re: desk question Hello, I found a portable desktop slant board, made of wood, that is very helpful for editing and for reading and marking copy. The dimensions are 16" x 24" with a variable angle (I can adjust the desktop up and down). I got it several years ago at a bed and back shop in the Washington, DC, area for $80. For working on the computer, I use an inexpensive plastic copystand atop the disk drive next to my monitor. That way, I don't need to look up and down, only back and forth from the copy to the screen. I have also used a page- holder clip that attaches to the top of the monitor. All of these items have helped me in dealing with existing neck problems. Sue Nedrow ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 21:48:09 +0100 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Linda Sutherland Subject: Re: Web indexing - my viewpoint The message <199804200921.KAA11250@irwell.zetnet.co.uk> from "J.A Binns" contains these words: > At 04:16 PM 4/20/98 +1000, Dwight wrote: > > > >I sense a bogging down in Australia about new technology. People in America > >seem to be more willing to give it ago. I cannot help this so I am adapting > >to the way things are and moving with the Americans now. All the best > >Australians. Americans I am glad to work with you. > What about the British? > My main feeling is that I am rather bewildered by all the jargon, and I am > not sure how to educate myself in the basics. I am certainly hoping to take > Dwight's course at some time in the future though. I'm in sympathy with Margaret here. Not only the jargon, but the pace of change is bewildering. As an article in the latest Library Association Record says, "the HTML course you waited three months for might well be redundant by the time you have mastered the skills." Like Margaret, I'd be interested in taking Dwight's course, but have put it off for the time being. That's partly because I'd need to upgrade my computer first, but mainly because of my impression that a lot of settling-down needs to happen before investing in training can begin to look sensible. -- Linda Sutherland linda.sutherland@zetnet.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 13:41:53 -0700 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "McMillen, Paula" Subject: Re: Articles in titles (was French Titles) I agree with Fred that our priority should be on convenience/usefulness for the reader rather than the indexer--within reason of course ;-} Paula McMillen McMillen Indexing Services > ---------- > From: Locatelli[SMTP:Locatelli@AOL.COM] > Reply To: Indexer's Discussion Group > Sent: Friday, April 17, 1998 8:15 PM > To: Multiple recipients of list INDEX-L > Subject: Re: Articles in titles (was French Titles) > > In a message dated 98-04-16 12:11:35 EDT, fugleman@mindspring.com > writes: > > >No matter which way you decide to index the entry, > >make sure it only shows up once in the index. Two > >advantages here: One, the reader has only one place to > >look. Two, it's easier for you to remember where it is in > >case you have to change pagination, spelling, etc. > > > So, for instance, to use the poem by Edgar Allan > > Poe: > > > > R > > Raven, The. See The Raven. > > > > T > > The Raven, 5, 15, 49 > > > > Of course, this is just an off-the-top-of-the-head > > example, but you get the idea. I almost never use articles > > unless it is part of a proper name, such as The Money > > Store. > > The problem with only listing the title once is that it forces more > work on > the reader. If readers think of the "wrong" entry, they must spend > time > flipping to the "right" one after finding the "see" reference. So it > does the > readers a service to double post. Note, too, that "Raven, The. See The > Raven" > actually takes up more space than if you entered "Raven, The, 5, 15, > 49." So > you are not saving any space if space is an issue. On the other hand, > if there > are many subentries under "The Raven, " then there is more > justification for > the cross reference rather than double posting all the subentries. > > There is nothing intrinsically wrong with using double entries if it > helps the > reader. > > Fred Leise > Between the Lines Indexing and Editorial Services > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 18:59:49 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Dafydd Llwyd Talcott <75711.1537@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: CHAT: Sanskrit & Font Madness This note is for those of you having interests in graphic design, typography, and similar good stuff. Since I bore and dismay my hapless friends whenever I bcome EXCITED about something [3 or 4 times a year] I wanted to share with you a couple of interesting discoveries. I will attempt to restrain my babbling. A local friend and I lavish goodies on one another including newly- found Internet sites, software, books, and the like. She "collects" as I do and last year gave me a copy of the Reduced OED [she had TWO od them]. Sometimes we barter services as well as goods. Auto repair, telephone fiddling, graphic arts tips, like that. Last week she had a request for some German Fraktur-style fonts, which I do not have. Of course I turned this simple request into A Project. With some diligent searching I located an amazing trove of typographic material, both fonts and software. Writing down and then rekeying the URLs for 30 or so sources seemed like too much work, so I edited my bookmark file and sent it on to her. Even though I use a PC and her sustem is Macintosh there shouldn't be too much trouble loading an HTML file onto her Netscape Navigator program. I have retained this file and would like to make it available to group members. Please contact me directly if you are interested. The bookmarks are primarily for font sources, but I retained a few other entries for publishers, HTML information, and similar URLs. Since the file is a TEXT file there should be no intersystem transmission difficulties. The file as sent would be which should be renamed for PC use and for Mac. [Actually I am guessing at some of this, but it seems sensible. Ho ho.] * * * * * SANSKRIT. What you've all been waiting for. One of my dicoveries from the above research was a delightful program by Christopher J Fynn for typing the Sanskrit or Modern Tibetan language. He includes in the package a truly beautiful Modern Tibetan A font. The program manifests itself as a pushbutton [icon] on the user's screen; when clicked, the keyboard switches to the Tibetan layout, clicked again it reverts to normal. The font is in TrueType format so it can be nicely scaled. The author lists the programs in which he has tested his software [It WON'T run in Microsoft Windows Write]. Mr Fynn includes a well-written instruction sheet digramming the keyboard layout, along with installation advice and a sample sheet of text. I have installed the font and program, and printed the sample sheet with good results; the little icon appears when requested, but I have not yet attempted typing. [Incidentally, I am sending Fynn a short note along with this one: he may not be at his address mentioned in the files since the files are four years old.] Since I have forgotten the URL at which I found this material I have squashed the whole package, along with a second Tibetan font, into a single ZIP file about 250K in size. Should you wish a copy of this file I'll gladly transmit it to you. THIS one will be Uuencoded and should decode to . Snailmail is also a possibility. END BABBLE MODE Cheers, Dave T. 75711.1537@compuserve.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 19:26:57 -0400 Reply-To: brocindx@catskill.net Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Kevin A. Broccoli" Organization: Broccoli Indexing Services Subject: Re: Web indexing - my viewpoint Linda Sutherland wrote: > > > > > Like Margaret, I'd be interested in taking Dwight's course, but have > put it off for the time being. That's partly because I'd need to > upgrade my computer first, but mainly because of my impression that a > lot of settling-down needs to happen before investing in training can > begin to look sensible. > > -- > Linda Sutherland > linda.sutherland@zetnet.co.uk Oh, I wouldn't wait for any "settling down"! There isn't going to BE any settling with the Web. NOW is the time to jump on the bandwagon. In the internet environment the only thing that you can be sure will stay the same is that everything will keep changing...it will take information organizers to keep the chaos in at least some degree of order. Those information organizers are US- indexers! Yes, we'll need to constantly keep learning..but surely instructors such as Dwight Walker will keep on top of things and be ready to give us the further instruction that we require at the needed time. Kevin A. Broccoli Broccoli Information Management brocindx@catskill.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 19:39:45 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Ann Norcross Subject: Re: CHAT: Sanskrit & Font Madness Dafydd Llwyd Talcott wrote: -------friendly snip of lots of interesting font stuff -------- > I have retained this file and would like to make it available to group > members. Please contact me directly if you are interested. The bookmarks > are primarily for font sources, but I retained a few other entries > for publishers, HTML information, and similar URLs. Since the file > is a TEXT file there should be no intersystem transmission difficulties. > The file as sent would be which should be renamed > for PC use and for Mac. [Actually I > am guessing at some of this, but it seems sensible. Ho ho.] No need to rename the file--and if your real bookmark file is called BOOKMARKS.HTM, renaming Dafydd's file would be a MISTAKE. Your Web browser (Netscape or Internet Explorer, probably) should open any file with an HTM or HTML extension. Just double-click on Dafydd's file...should work. You might get a dialog box asking you what application you want to use to open files of this type (HTM or HTML). Just scroll down the list presented to you until you find the name of your Web browser. If you also click the little box (this is Windows 95 I'm talking about) that says "always use this program to open files of this type" you won't have to ever make this choice again! And guess what...this list of Dafydd's is WEB INDEXING! Right, Dwight?? Ann Norcross ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 20:00:18 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Nmbenton Subject: Re: CHAT: Sanskrit & Font Madness Dear Dave, I would LOVE to have your bookmark file! What a treasure trove!!! My father is a diplomat and a linguist and a font enthusiast (not necessarily in that order). That is a perfect present for him. By the way, have you seen anything in Georgian? I did a cross stitch sampler of the Georgian alphabet once because it is absolutley gorgeous! Nell Benton 1214 Hillside Terrace, Alexandria, VA 22302 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 15:26:54 -0500 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Carol Roberts Subject: Re: desk question In-Reply-To: <199804190401.XAA22150@mixcom.mixcom.com> I have a corner-style computer desk (i.e., I face the corner and have desk space to left and right) that has a vertically adjustable section for the keyboard. I prop a ledger book right in front of me, between keyboard and computer screen, to hold pages. With this setup, I glance slightly downward to see pages, but I don't actually have to tilt my head downward. Cheers, Carol Roberts, indexer and copy editor | I'm not into working out. My Carol.Roberts@mixcom.com | philosophy: No pain, no pain. Milwaukee, WI | -- Carol Leifer http://www.mixweb.com/Roberts.Indexing ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 11:19:06 +1000 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Dwight Walker Subject: Re: Web indexing - my viewpoint At 10:20 20/04/98 +0100, you wrote: >At 04:16 PM 4/20/98 +1000, Dwight wrote: >> >>I sense a bogging down in Australia about new technology. People in America >>seem to be more willing to give it ago. I cannot help this so I am adapting >>to the way things are and moving with the Americans now. All the best >>Australians. Americans I am glad to work with you. > > >What about the British? > >My main feeling is that I am rather bewildered by all the jargon, and I am >not sure how to educate myself in the basics. I am certainly hoping to take >Dwight's course at some time in the future though. Hi Margaret Yes there some very good British folk I have met at indexing conferences out here in Australia like Betty Moys and Drusilla Calvert. Plus my confidence is growing in them as I discover more of their talents. The British gave me an opportunity to be corresponding editor for Australasia for The Indexer and that has given me a leg up too - sort of continued over after I pulled out as editor of the Australian Society of Indexers Newsletter late last year. Thanks for your support! We on our little island nation sometimes get a bit insulated ;) Getting into the big swim overseas certainly keeps us up with you guys. With email and the Web distances are not such a big deal any more. I'm sure the North Americans, British and Aussies can all pull together in this new area. I envision several of us in a team indexing a big Web site or subject and while some of us are asleep the others can be beavering away on the other side of the world - a pool of talent! I am going to develop client-server technology to ensure this kind of pooled indexing method works. WEBIX will be the client for indexers to share their indexing in a central Web based database. Currently it will be a standalone Java product but later it will feed in the backend to a central server which any indexer who has a password can access using their browser. This is the ultimate 'distributed' team hey? I talk about this in my course. It's not just intellectual - we have a mentoring program where you can bounce ideas off me to get you going. You are very welcome to join in our course on Web indexing. Just contact me when you are ready. You just need a normal Web browser, HTML editing tools and ICQ chat setup. Dwight ---------------------------------------------------------- Dwight Walker, Sydney, Australia tel +61-2-98960286, mob 0412-405727, fax +61-2-97772058 ICQ No. 4631678, handle: wwwalker (www.mirabilis.com) WWWalker Web Development: http://www.wwwalker.com.au Australian Society of Indexers: http://www.zeta.org.au/~aussi Sydney Linux Users Group http://www.slug.org.au Waverley Randwick Philharmonic http://www.wwwalker.com.au/wrps.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 11:19:35 +1000 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Dwight Walker Subject: Re: Web indexing - my viewpoint At 10:32 20/04/98 -0500, you wrote: > I understand as I have an MLS but haven't practiced traditional >librarianship for years. I want to break-out of the mold too. > > Education is the hardest part for this kind of work. What do you need >to know to do good web indexing? Answering that question is not only >challenging but the answer keeps changing with technology. Yes I am working on tools but the main thing is getting the mind set of a Web surfer who can classify. Seeing how the big search engines can be used to your ends is very empowering. > > Put me on the list. I may also reconsider taking your class since >it's the only one I know of in the world. Just realize that some of the >material I'd be fairly familiar with. Yes. There different degrees of readiness. You would already have the guts of the method but could develop it into say Web indexes or may be meta data. I am going to work on XML too. Plenty of reading of the WWW7 conference papers to catch up! www7.conf.au > I would like to say one thing regarding ASI and AUSI regarding web >indexing. The web index contest and material regarding Internet and >electronic indexing was why I joined AUSI in the first place. You seem >to have more of it than we do (or did, we may be picking up more on it >now than when I first joined). I'm planning to go to the Seattle ASI Yes I have heard others say that Australians are more into electronic indexing than North Americans. May be we have spent more time on that. As editor I used to feed in a fair bit to help people catch up. It seems to have worked. Now you guys are coming in on it too. >conference. I understand some AUSI people will be there. I will be >nitpicking the brains of anyone involved in Internet indexing. Let me >know if you will be going, I know it's a long trip for any of you there >and I appreciate the effort you and others take to teach and educate >those of us who are trying to break into it too. Yes. I will be there. Hope to see you and some of your colleagues. We can have some very interesting chats over coffee and enjoy North America's natural beauty at the same time. I have met some Yankees at WWW7 and am getting quite excited about all the possibitilies of having say a colleague in America to help me get ready for the next big push into this area. Your ISDN and internet costs are a fraction of ours out here. Telstra our telco is rather greedy and has stifled us for decades. Lately we have had some others like Optus and Vodaphone who have broken Telstra's monopoly. I have heard you guys have free ISDN after hours and flat rate local calls - what a boon financially! Very tempting to move over there I can tell you! Dwight ---------------------------------------------------------- Dwight Walker, Sydney, Australia tel +61-2-98960286, mob 0412-405727, fax +61-2-97772058 ICQ No. 4631678, handle: wwwalker (www.mirabilis.com) WWWalker Web Development: http://www.wwwalker.com.au Australian Society of Indexers: http://www.zeta.org.au/~aussi Sydney Linux Users Group http://www.slug.org.au Waverley Randwick Philharmonic http://www.wwwalker.com.au/wrps.html ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Apr 1998 20:49:50 -0700 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Jeri Lee Subject: Re: Web indexing - my viewpoint > Very tempting to move over there I can tell you! > The front apartment in my building just became available; when can you move in? (;->)! Jeri Lee, who has her tongue firmly planted in cheek! > Dwight > ---------------------------------------------------------- > Dwight Walker, Sydney, Australia > tel +61-2-98960286, mob 0412-405727, fax +61-2-97772058 > ICQ No. 4631678, handle: wwwalker (www.mirabilis.com) > WWWalker Web Development: http://www.wwwalker.com.au > Australian Society of Indexers: http://www.zeta.org.au/~aussi > Sydney Linux Users Group http://www.slug.org.au > Waverley Randwick Philharmonic http://www.wwwalker.com.au/wrps.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 08:33:08 +0200 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: jgreene Subject: Re: CHAT: Sanskrit & Font Madness Dafydd, I'd be very thankful to receive your font file. Tell me how you would send it off and whether I would need to provide you with something for it. Sincerely, Joyce Dafydd Llwyd Talcott wrote: > This note is for those of you having interests in graphic design, > typography, and similar good stuff. Since I bore and dismay my hapless > friends whenever I bcome EXCITED about something [3 or 4 times a > year] I wanted to share with you a couple of interesting discoveries. > I will attempt to restrain my babbling. > > A local friend and I lavish goodies on one another including newly- > found Internet sites, software, books, and the like. She "collects" > as I do and last year gave me a copy of the Reduced OED [she had TWO > od them]. Sometimes we barter services as well as goods. Auto repair, > telephone fiddling, graphic arts tips, like that. Last week she had > a request for some German Fraktur-style fonts, which I do not have. > Of course I turned this simple request into A Project. With some diligent > searching I located an amazing trove of typographic material, both > fonts and software. Writing down and then rekeying the URLs for 30 > or so sources seemed like too much work, so I edited my bookmark file > and sent it on to her. Even though I use a PC and her sustem is Macintosh > there shouldn't be too much trouble loading an HTML file onto her > Netscape Navigator program. > > I have retained this file and would like to make it available to group > members. Please contact me directly if you are interested. The bookmarks > are primarily for font sources, but I retained a few other entries > for publishers, HTML information, and similar URLs. Since the file > is a TEXT file there should be no intersystem transmission difficulties. > The file as sent would be which should be renamed > for PC use and for Mac. [Actually I > am guessing at some of this, but it seems sensible. Ho ho.] > > * * * * * > > SANSKRIT. What you've all been waiting for. > > One of my dicoveries from the above research was a delightful program > by Christopher J Fynn for typing the Sanskrit or Modern Tibetan > language. He includes in the package a truly beautiful Modern Tibetan A > font. The program manifests itself as a pushbutton [icon] on the user's > screen; when clicked, the keyboard switches to the Tibetan layout, > clicked again it reverts to normal. The font is in TrueType format so > it can be nicely scaled. The author lists the programs in which he has > tested his software [It WON'T run in Microsoft Windows Write]. > > Mr Fynn includes a well-written instruction sheet digramming the > keyboard layout, along with installation advice and a sample sheet > of text. I have installed the font and program, and printed the > sample sheet with good results; the little icon appears when requested, > but I have not yet attempted typing. [Incidentally, I am sending Fynn > a short note along with this one: he may not be at his address mentioned > in the files since the files are four years old.] > > Since I have forgotten the URL at which I found this material I have > squashed the whole package, along with a second Tibetan font, into a > single ZIP file about 250K in size. Should you wish a copy of this > file I'll gladly transmit it to you. THIS one will be Uuencoded and > should decode to . Snailmail is also a possibility. > > END BABBLE MODE > > Cheers, > Dave T. > 75711.1537@compuserve.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 13:37:25 +0100 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "J.A Binns" Subject: Re: Web indexing - my viewpoint In-Reply-To: At 11:19 AM 4/21/98 +1000, Dwight wrote: >At 10:20 20/04/98 +0100, you wrote: >> >>My main feeling is that I am rather bewildered by all the jargon, and I am >>not sure how to educate myself in the basics. I am certainly hoping to take >>Dwight's course at some time in the future though. > >Hi Margaret > >You are very welcome to join in our course on Web indexing. Just contact me >when you are ready. You just need a normal Web browser, HTML editing tools >and ICQ chat setup. > That's just what I mean about being bewildered by the jargon - I have no idea whether I have all those things or not! And if I haven't, how and where do I get them? How do I actually find out what all this stuff means? Are there any books that will help make sense of it all, or is it all moving so fast that books are out-of-date? I feel that most of the computer-related information that I have picked up has been by a sort of process of osmosis, and I know there is still a huge amount that I don't understand. How do I break through what I feel is a sort of barrier of jargon? I'm sure I would understand more if I knew what all the terminology meant in plain English (or American) (or Australian). Margaret Binns ============================ Margaret Binns Indexer 20 Hangleton Manor Close Hove, Sussex, BN3 8AJ, UK Tel: 01273 420844 binns@hangleton.u-net.com ============================ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 09:56:52 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Nmbenton Subject: Re: Web indexing - my viewpoint Dear Margaret, I share your frustration. My approach is to take each word I don't understand and do three things: First, I ask people. I feel truly stupid when I do this but I believe I'm stupider not to ask. When the answer is just more jargon, I go into my second step. I do an internet search on the word I don't understand. Usually I find something written on my level.("XML" was greatly clarified for me in that way.) Third, I take on a project beyond my ability as a lark, so I don't shortchange a client. (I am working on a collection of internet links for international charities as a volunteer effort.) Also, it seems like half the words and processes that block me are deceptively simple and half of them are much harder than I could have expected. In short, you're not alone. Good luck! Nell Benton ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 07:27:49 -0700 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Jan C. Wright" Subject: Re: Web indexing - my viewpoint In-Reply-To: <199804211341.JAA01822@camel23.mindspring.com> In terms of understanding the jargon, one of the best books for learning html (and the jargon) is Laura Lemay's Teach Yourself HTML. She makes it very easy to understand. There are also great books on introducing the internet - although I don't have one lurking right now near my desk to type it in. The IDG dummies series most certainly would have one that could fill in the jargon for you. At 01:37 PM 4/21/98 +0100, you wrote: >At 11:19 AM 4/21/98 +1000, Dwight wrote: >>At 10:20 20/04/98 +0100, you wrote: >>> >>>My main feeling is that I am rather bewildered by all the jargon, and I am >>>not sure how to educate myself in the basics. I am certainly hoping to take >>>Dwight's course at some time in the future though. >> >>Hi Margaret >> >>You are very welcome to join in our course on Web indexing. Just contact me >>when you are ready. You just need a normal Web browser, HTML editing tools >>and ICQ chat setup. >> > > >That's just what I mean about being bewildered by the jargon - I have no >idea whether I have all those things or not! And if I haven't, how and >where do I get them? How do I actually find out what all this stuff means? >Are there any books that will help make sense of it all, or is it all >moving so fast that books are out-of-date? I feel that most of the >computer-related information that I have picked up has been by a sort of >process of osmosis, and I know there is still a huge amount that I don't >understand. How do I break through what I feel is a sort of barrier of >jargon? I'm sure I would understand more if I knew what all the terminology >meant in plain English (or American) (or Australian). > >Margaret Binns > > > ============================ > Margaret Binns > Indexer > 20 Hangleton Manor Close > Hove, Sussex, BN3 8AJ, UK > Tel: 01273 420844 > binns@hangleton.u-net.com > ============================ > Jan +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Jan C. Wright Wright Information Indexing Services Jancw@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~jancw +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:49:53 +0100 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Linda Sutherland Subject: Re: Web indexing - my viewpoint The message <199804202323.AAA05015@irwell.zetnet.co.uk> from "Kevin A. Broccoli" contains these words: > Oh, I wouldn't wait for any "settling down"! There isn't going to BE > any settling with the Web. NOW is the time to jump on the bandwagon. In > the internet environment the only thing that you can be sure will stay > the same is that everything will keep changing...it will take > information organizers to keep the chaos in at least some degree of > order. Those information organizers are US- indexers! Yes, we'll need > to constantly keep learning..but surely instructors such as Dwight > Walker will keep on top of things and be ready to give us the further > instruction that we require at the needed time. Maybe I should try to clarify what I meant. I'm not advocating ignoring Web indexing altogether - on the contrary, I intend to go on reading, exploring and experimenting! But it will be self-education, since, much though I admire Dwight's initiative and enthusiasm, I don't see formal training making commercial sense for me at present. It's a problem familiar to most freelancers - do you invest in the hope of getting enough work to recoup the investment, or do you wait for the work to loom on the horizon before you commit the cash. There will always be at least two answers! I do suspect - though I'll readily admit that this is based on intuition as much as reason - that some degree of stabilisation will have to happen before potential clients regard Web indexing by humans as a worthwhile investment for them. I'd expect Web content always to remain volatile, and I'd expect indexers to develop ways of coping with that. The "settling down" I had in mind is more to do with long-term standardisation of tools such as specifications for HTML, metadata and the like. As far as I know, there is currently no generally accepted specification for metadata, and the HTML spec. seems to be in a state of constant evolution. -- Linda Sutherland linda.sutherland@zetnet.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 11:04:54 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: indexer@INETCOM.NET Subject: Re: Web indexing - my viewpoint I too have been following the Web indexing discussion with great fascination. And good luck Lynn on your CardioIndex! I'm surprised at Dwight's comments about Australians since I seem to remember that Australians were in the forefront of per-capita Internet usage, although it's been a while since I saw any figures. It pretty much broke down as a function of isolation: I think New Zealand was for a long time the leader with Australia a close second followed by the more isolated sections of Canada. That's probably all changed now like everything on the Net. I too am very interested in taking Dwight's course in the near future, though I may wait a few months until I can afford upgrading to a pentium and Win95. I just found out my Brother laser printer is totalled! Anyway to the point of this post: What about the relatively simple task of reviewing the content of a person or organization's web site, producing a list of keywords for it, then sending that list to the search engines. I know there were and presumably still are services in which you pick your own terms and they distribute them to all the search engines, in fact this was discussed on Index-L a few years back. Most of what I see discussed in the context of Web Indexing appears to relate to producing an onsite index for a web site, i.e., geared toward helping the user find things _once they get to your site_, while the service I described would be aimed at getting the right people _to_ your site. Kevin Mulrooney ------------------------------------------------------------------- Dyslexics of the world untie! Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty but only the pig enjoys it. First State Indexing (302) 738-2558 276 East Main Street Indexer@inetcom.net Newark, Delaware 19711 http://www2.inet.net/~indexer/kjm.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 12:27:54 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Christine Shuttleworth Subject: John Gordon Many indexers will be sorry to hear of the death on Friday 17 April at th= e age of 85 of John Gordon, a leading figure in the history of the Society = of Indexers. John Ainsworth Gordon was Secretary of the Society from 1975 to 1979, the= n Chairman from 1979 to 1983, and Vice-President 1983 to 1989. He received the Carey Award for outstanding services to indexing in 1989. The citatio= n described him as "re-invigorator, organiser, consolidator, protector of t= he standards of the Society, enthusiast of indexing, supporter of the membership, fiery arguer, innovator of ideas". He was a frequent contributor to The Indexer, and his "Confessions of an ex-Secretary" in t= he October 1980 issue (12/2, 88-9) were described by Ken Bakewell, then President of the Society, who presented the Award, as "one of the funnies= t articles published in The Indexer". = Christine ************************************************************* Christine Shuttleworth - Indexing and Editorial Services Flat 1, 25 St Stephen's Avenue, London W12 8JB Tel/Fax (+44 181) 749 8797 email ChristineShuttleworth@compuserve.com or 106234.1745@compuserve.com ************************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 10:03:28 -0700 Reply-To: jinks@connectnet.com Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Jinks Connectnet Subject: "Web indexing" - which element first? I've been lurking since I joined the list, and I've been reading the thread on Web Indexing with interest. I'm a cataloger for an academic law library and am thinking of doing freelance indexing on the side. I plan to take the USDA course as soon as my tax refund comes in. :-) My question is this: since I'm interested in web indexing, should I jump into that (online) course directly? Or is a grounding in "paper" indexing required? (This takes me back to my childhood when I wanted to learn piccolo but kept being told I had to learn flute first...) Many thanks, Jinks Barnet jinks@connectnet.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 06:05:57 +1000 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Dwight Walker Subject: economics of Web indexing It seems that there are several areas that are hampering Web indexing. First: who sticks their neck out financially. Luckily I am multitalented and can do technical support, technical writing and Web sites and even bush dance gigs! My plans for WEBIX may be hitting a snag - will many people buy the product in the early days? I think Bill Gates has one advantage - very deep pockets to pay for efforts that do not pay off initially. New technologies may be scarey with no handy 'dummies' books on the shelf. For God's sake get on an electronic mailing list aimed at you and just read the news on this field. You may get lucky and find a you-beaut Web site or person in a remote part of the world who can be your eyes and ears in this new era. We stay with the pleasant and easy - the things we can we sure will return on our investment. I must be unique in that I can bounce from something that may not make me sufficient funds to live on to a different line of work. In November I was editor of the Australian Society of Indexers and their Webmaster as well. This is voluntary work and was really bogging down my efforts to get my company going. I was also President of Waverley Randwick Philharmonic Society Inc. in Sydney. All 3 were really incredibly interesting but I had to drop them one by one to make my little company viable. Life involves some tough decisions. First I was not that interested in coming to the American Society of Indexers Conference in Seattle because I could not see any interest from here in November in people actually spending money to get into Web indexing. It was a very risky venture as an entrepreneur - all the Web indexing prize judging took me days and days and I was not being paid a cent for this effort. It was all voluntary. Often I had to just stay 'stop, no more time on voluntary work' to make sure my little enterprise did not founder. Now I am free of all that baggage, I can plan and see if my products are viable. I often get branded as some silly enthusiast. However I am making all hard-headed business decisions. If my product WEBIX ever gets off the ground it will be with critical mass. I cannot see too much of that happening yet. The only person I know who has been like a stick-fast flee has been Olivia L'Heureux. She has motivated me to keep on trying to get this ruddy industry going. When did English become 'standard' and did not change from century to century? English in Henry VIII's time is totally different from the 20th century. I am a little stunned by the lack of imagination in this field. Luckily I have had a steady trickle of students in my classes. Hence I am not too phased by the book indexers who are not going to do anything (really - if you read between the lines). Good luck to you. I am sure there will be books for many decades to come. I am not asking you to risk your livelihood on some new you-beaut technology. Don't. Just live on book indexing. May be you have to have your feet in two camps to make the transition. I have done a computer degree and a librarianship diploma. So in an interesting twist I may have an excellent niche market - no competition from book indexers and no competition from technical writers... ;) Stay in book indexing. It will be a most rewarding new era for my little startup... For the curious onlookers, stay in touch with WWWalker - it may just turn a profit ;). My site will have news about my product and you can see if my company survives or hits the wall in this particular venture. I don't think it will. I have a remarkable history of bouncing back. Here is my URL again: http://www.wwwalker.com.au/ On a less depressing note, I am going to Seattle and hope to see you soon. I've heard Seattle is a very beautiful city so will not think I have wasted my $2000 to get there... I have always wanted to visit USA since I was a kid. Dwight PS What happened to Sue Wilkerson who kicked off the ICQ chat connection between Aussies, Yankees and Canadians? Her email bounces and her TCOF page no longer exists. For the non-Australians I started writing technical articles on the Internet to get our members up to date with the new technology. One comment from a newbie was how surprised she was at the amount of information she found on the Internet. May beyou need a friendly technical writer to do some homework for you and translate the jargon into some easy to use tips and knowledge. ---------------------------------------------------------- Dwight Walker, Sydney, Australia tel +61-2-98960286, mob 0412-405727, fax +61-2-97772058 ICQ No. 4631678, handle: wwwalker (www.mirabilis.com) WWWalker Web Development: http://www.wwwalker.com.au Australian Society of Indexers: http://www.zeta.org.au/~aussi Sydney Linux Users Group http://www.slug.org.au Waverley Randwick Philharmonic http://www.wwwalker.com.au/wrps.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 06:18:13 +1000 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Dwight Walker Subject: why Aussies do make many commercially viable products hi I guess a little known fact is that Australia only has 18 million population and the market out here is pretty small. Most of our best inventions have gone off shore because the domestic market is too canny to spend much (may be our Scottish forebears ;). As a result any commercially viable products made by Australians like INXS usually go much better overseas financially. I am finding the same thing. And the nice thing about the Internet is that I don't have to leave Australia to do this - I can do the courses and sell software over the Internet at low cost. (Do you see the commercial sense now? Aussie resourcefulness with Internet low cost distribution adds up to an extraordinary opportunity to make a buck.) I wonder if this has happened to remote Canadian areas too? I'll see if I can find other groups that will take it up too. There may be multimedia people or Web developers or Winhelp developers who will be interested in this new field of electronic indexing. Dwight ---------------------------------------------------------- Dwight Walker, Sydney, Australia tel +61-2-98960286, mob 0412-405727, fax +61-2-97772058 ICQ No. 4631678, handle: wwwalker (www.mirabilis.com) WWWalker Web Development: http://www.wwwalker.com.au Australian Society of Indexers: http://www.zeta.org.au/~aussi Sydney Linux Users Group http://www.slug.org.au Waverley Randwick Philharmonic http://www.wwwalker.com.au/wrps.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 15:38:21 -0500 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Anne Taylor Subject: infoplease.com Hello All, Thought this might be of interest to more than a few of us... and apologize to anyone who has already seen it on BUSLIB-L. >Approved-By: Annamaria Profit >Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 13:23:51 +0000 >Reply-To: inteltek@erols.com >Sender: BUSLIB-L >From: Annamaria Profit >Organization: Competitive Intelligence Services >Subject: infoplease.com >To: BUSLIB-L@LISTSERV.IDBSU.EDU > >Information Please, is providing the largest free reference site >online. > >http://www.infoplease.com > >Information Please bills itself as the "ultimate fact finder on the >World Wide Web providing complete encyclopedia and dictionary content." > >A company spokesman says the Web site is designed to retrieve facts on >the first click, not through endless links. > >Also available at the Web site is the 1998 ESPN Information Please >Sports Almanac, the 1998 A&E Information Please Entertainment Almanac >and reference almanacs for children and girls. > >Taken from today's Inet news >-- >Annamaria Profit >http://www.erols.com/inteltek >inteltek@erols.com > Anne Taylor University of Missouri-St. Louis ataylor@umsl.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 00:38:17 +0100 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Linda Sutherland Subject: Re: economics of Web indexing The message <199804212006.VAA10774@fairisle.zetnet.co.uk> from Dwight Walker contains these words: > I think Bill Gates has one advantage - very deep pockets > to pay for efforts that do not pay off initially. I'm another who doesn't have that advantage, Dwight. I'm obliged to follow the old stockmarket adage "don't invest money you can't afford to lose". In one of my posts to the "Web indexing - my viewpoint" thread I said that I admire your initiative and enthusiasm. I do mean that. I wish you well in your venture, I'll follow its progress with interest, and if circumstances allow I may well become a customer at some time in the future. But, like yourself, I have to try to make hard-headed business decisions, and my judgment is that at present the circumstances don't allow. I hadn't intended discouragement, when I expressed that view, but I suspect it may have been at least partly responsible for the rather downbeat feeling to the message with which you started this present thread. Take heart! I'm only one person, and though I'm holding back for the time being, quite a few others have shown a more immediate interest in their messages to the various threads on Web indexing. -- Linda Sutherland linda.sutherland@zetnet.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 20:03:29 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Nmbenton Subject: Re: economics of Web indexing In a message dated 98-04-21 19:40:17 EDT, linda.sutherland@ZETNET.CO.UK writes: << In one of my posts to the "Web indexing - my viewpoint" thread I said that I admire your initiative and enthusiasm. I do mean that. I wish you well in your venture, I'll follow its progress with interest, and if circumstances allow I may well become a customer at some time in the future. But, like yourself, I have to try to make hard-headed business decisions, and my judgment is that at present the circumstances don't allow. >> I adore reading all the stories nowadays about the people who put a few pennies in the stock market and left them there. Now they are millionaires. Please don't put nothing into the concept of web indexing. A lot is too much, but put a little in! If it doesn't grow in money, you'll be able to tell your grandchildren, "I was part of it!" The real goldmine is the knowledge you gain. Put a little in, and like a financial wiz, follow the investment! Unlike a financial downturn, no economic developments can take what you learn away! Nell Benton ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 20:04:36 EDT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: tobiah r waldron Subject: Re: economics of Web indexing Dwight, how can I get more info on Web-Indexing? _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 21:54:03 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Manjit K. Sahai" Subject: Indexing resume/brochure to Human Resources Depts. Hi everyone, I just wanted to ask all the experienced indexers if they ever send their resume/brochure etc. to the human resources depts. of the big publishers/presses. Whenever I call the big publishers for getting the name of editor to send my resume, the receptionist always tells me to mail my package to the human resources dept and then they will forward to the appropriate editor. I am also told to mention on my cover letter that I just want freelance work. I always tell her that I am NOT looking for a job, I just want freelance work. Needless to say, I am not getting any luck with those kinds of receptionists. my questions are.... 1....should I send my package to the human resources dept. and wait what happens. 2....should I send one package to human resources dept. and send the 2nd package to the managing/production editor on my own? 3....has any of you gotton any project just by sending the package to just personnel dept? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Manjit K.Sahai RAM Indexing Services ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:50:30 +1000 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Dwight Walker Subject: not all is lost - step up to Web indexing being written Hi After much thought, Olivia L'Heureux and I are contemplating writing a Dummies Guide to Web Indexing for the price of a book e.g. $30 US. I am thinking of putting this on a password protected part of the WWWalker Web Site so you can get the most up to date version. Or if you prefer we can print it on A4 format and post it to you for say $5 extra air postage. Like they say, every difficulty is an opportunity or 'every cloud has a silver lining' - that's the beauty of being in small business - change with circumstances. So I am not giving up on you guys yet. You obviously need some more hand-holding and Olivia has already done a great job with the WEBIX Dummies Guide - mine was very spartan - a geek's guide for geeks I think one geek said! Yes we will demystify the jargon the Brits are stumbling over and they you can be ready for the 'big' course and not go broke just getting into the field hey? My Nana was British and Mum has a saying on the wall, 'A penny saved is a penny earned'. I know the Brits are very thrifty so if THEY buy it I think my product has really gone worldwide... (ha ha) Stay tuned for the next instalment from the land of Kangaroos, Lamingtons and Pavlova... and Web indexing... Dwight ---------------------------------------------------------- Dwight Walker, Sydney, Australia tel +61-2-98960286, mob 0412-405727, fax +61-2-97772058 ICQ No. 4631678, handle: wwwalker (www.mirabilis.com) WWWalker Web Development: http://www.wwwalker.com.au Australian Society of Indexers: http://www.zeta.org.au/~aussi Sydney Linux Users Group http://www.slug.org.au Waverley Randwick Philharmonic http://www.wwwalker.com.au/wrps.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 21:24:26 -0500 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Robert A. Saigh" Subject: Re: Indexing resume/brochure to Human Resources Depts. Manjit: I would never send my resume to personnel or human resources. It will just get lost or forgotten. If you can't get the editor's name, try another company; there are plenty of them. rob fugleman@mindspring.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 22:54:48 -0400 Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Ann Norcross Subject: Re: not all is lost - step up to Web indexing being written Dwight Walker wrote: ... lots of interesting Web indexing stuff... Hey Dwight... are you giving a formal presentation (workshop, roundtable, etc) in Seattle? If not, are you going to be available for an informal one at any point? Maybe a bunch of interested folks could get together over coffee one afternoon or morning? I assume there will be a bulletin board... let us know where you are! Ann Norcross