Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 09:21:47 ECT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Janet K. Ilacqua" Subject: Re: Technical Manual Indexing In-Reply-To: <199402021748.JAA03188@mail.netcom.com> from "Cammie Donaldson" at Feb 2, 94 12:47:27 pm ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I am an indexer/abstractor/cataloger and have done technical indexing for a programming magazine. One thing that I noticed is that it is easy to miss items if the index is not a complete whole entity. It is difficult to construct a good traditional subject index as it is. One option is, instead of constructing a traditional index, is to construct several special indexes, e.g. "options index" "Commands index," "Computer programs index," etc. This way, specialized topics will be grouped and easy to access. If you have any further questions or maybe want a sample of what I am describing, e-mail me at jki.netcom.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 09:22:17 ECT Reply-To: ab190@freenet.carleton.ca Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Richard W. Woodley" Subject: Re: Technical Manual Indexing ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I am working on a large software reference manual (400-500 pp) and will be doing the index (any moment now). The reference manual has an extremely detailed table of contents. The TOC is naturally detailed because the manual is highly structured. There are nine chapters, each divided into many sections, subsections, subsubsections, etc., all of which have wonderful explanatory names (we hope:-) Also, each chapter is provided with a "chapter table of contents." I have a very basic, perhaps incredibly stupid question - forgive me, I am a neophyte indexer (actually tech writer turned programmer turned tech writer for this project). And, alas, I've never gone beyond lesson 2 in the USDA course... Question: Should the index only provide entries that cannot be "found" by examining the table of contents OR is there some overlap between entries in the index and entries in the table of contents? Is there some balance to be struck because some users will use the index and not the table of contents? ....... Cameron Donaldson Software Productivity Solutions, Inc. cmd@sps.com I have indexed some in-house indexing and computer manuals for our branch. In my professional opinion the index should be complete in its own right . The Table of Contents will be organized thematically following the manual from front to back. The Index on the other hand will be arranged alphabetically by key subject headings. The Table of Contents may be a very good source of terms and keywords for use in the index. The keywords in an index should be those the user is most likely to think of. In the case of a manual they will likely be the terms used in the text and the Table of Contents. How the manual is organized and how extensive its use of subsections and subheadings will determine how detailed the Table of Contents is. If it is just a bare outline then the Index will provide access to many more key terms and ideas and concepts than the Table of Contents. If the Table of Contents has a heading for every single subsection or idea in the manual then it may be as extensive as the index, only arranged thematically rather than alphabetically. The Index may and indeed should use the same terminology as is used in the Table of Contents. My main point is that the Index should stand on its own and enable the user to find everything he needs to find in the manual by using the index. -- ************* Richard W. Woodley (ab190@freenet.carleton.ca.) ************* | Indexer-Analyst, Index & Reference Service, House of Commons (Canada) | | NCF Information Provider - Bridlewood Residents Hydro Line Committee | ****************** "Communicate Globally - Act Locally" ******************* ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 09:23:03 ECT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Indexing Services Subject: In-house indexer needed ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I am posting this message for someone else, so please respond the address and phone listed below. IDG Books Worldwide, Indianapolis is seeking a full-time in-house indexer for their staff, no freelancers. They publish mainly computer books. For more information contact: Beth Jenkins IDG Books 3250 N. Post Rd. Suite 140 Indianapolis, IN 46226 317/895-5205 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 09:26:20 ECT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Chuck Banks Subject: Internet Security Violations ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Hi, All! If you listened to National Public Radio's morning program you heard a report from Eugene Spafford, Purdue University, about a Trojan horse program that copies internet user IDs and passwords and passes them to system pirates. If not, here's the text of an article in the February 7, 1994 issue of _Communications_Week_: Intruders Gain Access to Remote Systems via Internet By Sharon Fisher PITTSBURG Organizations that use the Internet to log into remote systems may have had their remote accounts compromised and should change the passwords on those accounts, the Computer Emergency Response Team warned last week. The group, based here, tracks Internet security problems and alerts users to them. The most recent alert is aimed at users who use one Internet system to reach another one, such as through Telnet, Rlogin or FTP. The advisory stated that an unknown number of Trojan horse programs have been written to record log-on identifications and passwords as users connect to the remote systems, much like tapping a phone line. Through these programs, malicious hackers have been able to gain access to tens of thousands of Internet systems. The primary targets appear to be commercial Internet service providers, but any system that provides remote access is potentially at risk, according to the group. A program was recently written that uses a Unix monitoring tool present on Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Sun-3 and Sun-4 workstations running the SunOS 4.x operating system and on Solbourne Computer Systems. The advisory includes directions on how to discover whether the monitoring tool is being used, and how to modify it so it cannot be used for this purpose. The advisory can be found in the COMP.SECURITY.ANNOUNCE news group or via anonymous ftp from INFO.CERT.ORG. I hope this helps you protect your systems. Best Regards! Chuck Banks -- __ ________ ______ |\\ | || // Chuck Banks | \\ | ||_______ || Senior Technical Writer | \\ | || || NEC America, Inc. | \\| \\______ \\______ E-Mail: chuck@asl.dl.nec.com America, Incorporated CompuServe: 72520,411 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 09:26:50 ECT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: bob wallace Subject: Ithaca, NY, WICI workshop ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Hi, y'all. This is from another list, but some of you may be interested. Cheers, Carol Roberts rw16@cornell.edu > >WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS IN COMMUNICATION > >Thinking about starting your own communications business? Five Ithaca-area >women entrepreneurs who did just that will discuss their experiences on >Saturday, February 19, at Cornell University. > >Nancy A. Bereano (Firebrand Books), Cynthia McFarland (Cynthia McFarland >and Associates), Sheryl Sinkow (Art/Science Studio Lab), Doris Walsh (W-Two >Publications), and Penelope Wickham (New Strategist Publications) will >participate in a panel discussion on how and why they started their own >businesses, what worked, and what they would do differently now. > >The panel discussion will be held at Cornell University in room 215, Ives >Hall, beginning at 1:30 p.m. The panel discussion will be followed by >small-group sessions with individual panelists. The suggested donation is >$3 ($2 for students). > >The program is sponsored by the Ithaca chapter and Cornell University >student chapter of Women in Communications, Inc., a national organization >for men and women in the field of communication. > >For more information, contact Jane Hardy, Cornell University, 328 Kennedy >Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-4203 (telephone: 607 255-2171). > >Copyediting-L subscribers can also contact Beth Goelzer Lyons >(bgl1@cornell.edu) or Carol Roberts (rw16@cornell.edu). > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 09:37:17 ECT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "BITNET list server at BINGVMB (1.7f)" Subject: Problem processing mail file from TJJOHNSN@MACC.WISC.EDU Date: Tue, 08 Feb 94 20:12 CDT From: Timothy Joel Johnson Subject: Attorneys/Indexers and Local Government Article VII. Illinois Co To: INDEX-L@BINGVMB.BITNET X-VMS-To: IN%"index-l@bingvmb.bitnet",TJJOHNSN Hi! I am a licensed attorney, currently in library school, working on revising and creating an index for an annotated bibliography. The tentative title is _Local Government Article VII. Illinois Constitution 1970: An Annotated Bibliography of Cases, Attorney General Opinions, Books and Articles_. Article VII deals with local government units -- such as municipalities, counties, townships, school districts, special districts, etc. -- and concepts, such as home rule, non-home rule, etc. When I first wrote this bibliography, I created a draft, comprehensive subject index. As a novice indexer, I felt that this draft index was somewhat uneven and inconsistent. Now, I am working on streamlining the index and want to make it both more concise and more consistent. Fortunately, I am now enrolled in an indexing course in library school. Are there any attorneys/indexers out there? Are there any indexers out there who have written indexes for other annotated bibliographies or books about the Illinois Constitution or for your respective state constitutions? Has anyone done an index for a bib. or book about local government? Or has anyone created an index for a book dealing with both their state constitution (preferably Illinois) and local government? If so, can you please send me some bibliographic information on your book or title? What did you use for an authority file? I am thinking about using some combination of the LC KF classification, possibly the _Index to Legal Periodicals Thesaurus_, and maybe the modified LC-subject headings used by the LegalTrac/_Current Law Index_ folks -- all as a starting point for creating a consistent authority file. Does anyone know if LegalTrac/_Current Law Index_ publishes a book of its subject headings? Any guidance you can offer will be welcome. Timothy Johnson tjjohnsn@macc.wisc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Feb 1994 16:39:46 ECT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Jessica Milstead <76440.2356@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: Technical Manual Indexing ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I found your message puzzling. First you point out that it is easy to miss items "if the index is not a complete whole entity," but then you go on to suggest making multiple indexes. Isn't there a contradiction here? The ANSI/NISO standard calls for a single index unless there are compelling reasons for multiple indexes. Unfortunately, people don't find the extra indexes when they search. They find an "index," see that what they want isn't there, and think the information either isn't indexed or isn't in the work at all. Certainly there are exceptions, but in index design it's best to be prejudiced in favor of a single index, requiring that any suggestion for multiple indexes be justified -- and for user-oriented, not aesthetic, reasons. That is, the organization should be based on making lookup easy, not on a desire to classify things, from which we all suffer. For instance, what would your proposed separate indexes to options, commands, and computer programs give users that would not be provided by simply letting them look up "Exit" (or whatever) without worrying about whether they have found the correct index? Jessica Milstead ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Feb 1994 16:40:20 ECT Reply-To: LWill@willpowr.demon.co.uk Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Leonard Will Subject: Re: Technical Manual Indexing ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- In message <9402110350.aa27607@post.demon.co.uk> Janet K. Ilacqua (jki@netcom.com> writes: > > I am an indexer/abstractor/cataloger and have done technical indexing for > a programming magazine. One thing that I noticed is that it is easy to miss > items if the index is not a complete whole entity. Yes. This seems to say that you should have a single comprehensive index rather than splitting it. I strongly agree. > It is difficult to construct a good traditional subject index as it is. Is this saying anything more than that indexing is a skill which needs practice and training? Sure it is. > One option is, instead of constructing a traditional index, is to > construct several special indexes, e.g. "options index" "Commands index," > "Computer programs index," etc. This way, specialized topics will be > grouped and easy to access. If you have any further questions or maybe > want a sample of what I am describing, e-mail me at jki.netcom.com > This worries me, and seems to contradict the first point above. If I want information about "printing", say, I want to be able to look up that topic in the index and have a display of all the manual contains about it. I don't know whether there are "options", "commands", or "programs", and I want the index to tell me. The main or only index to a work should, IMHO, be like a library "dictionary catalogue", with subjects and names in a single comprehensive sequence. If there are specialist types of material which are likely to be sought by type, then there may be justification for producing _additional_ indexes for these, but the material should still be accessible through the main index. If it is convenient to do so, there is nothing to stop an indexer from compiling separate lists as part of the indexing process, and this is a good idea to check completeness, but please amalgamate them before publication. I have wept over so many "amateur" indexes produced by journal publishers which group items under the section headings in which they appeared, like "Letters to the editor", "Notes and news", "This week", "Hints and tips", "Book reviews", and other such useless labels, that I would be very sorry to see anyone departing from the idea that an index should be a direct and one-step access to the topic which a user seeks. I'm sending this to the list rather than as a personal email reply because I think that it is a topic of general interest. What do other people think? -- Leonard Will Information Management Consultant Tel: +44 81 366 7386 27 Calshot Way, ENFIELD, Middlesex Email: LWill@willpowr.demon.co.uk EN2 7BQ, United Kingdom ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 11:58:27 ECT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "Jeff Finlay, aka H-Amstdy Moderator" Organization: St. Peter's College, US Subject: indexer needed ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I'm not sure how this is going to go over (and I hope to hell the publishers aren't listening in 8-)), but I have a book I accepted (a study of Wagner in America) and then got offered a full-time teaching job. Needless to say, I took the latter (teaching being my first love in life), but now I'm struggling to do the index, and it's due rather soon. I'd like to be rid of it, and would be happy to find someone who could take it on. They'd have to be fairly experienced back of the book indexers, that's all. The book is history--Wagner in America. It's about 370 pages, for which UCAL Press will pay 2.50 a page. It's a good read and should be fun to do, but it needs to be completed soon. So if there's anyone out there who wants to take this up, pick up the phone and give me a call (number below). Hope I haven't transgressed any professional boundaries with this. I would be interested to know if I have. Jeff *%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*% : Jeff Finlay : finlay_j@spcvxa.spc.edu (NOT a dash) : : American Studies Program : finlay@ycvax.york.cuny.edu : : New York University : telephone: (718) 545-9013 : : : : moderator: H-AMSTDY@UICVM.UIC.EDU : : An American Studies List : *%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*% ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 11:58:52 ECT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: AnnMarie Mitchell Subject: Re: Technical Manual Indexing In-Reply-To: <9402112217.AA21376@library.Berkeley.EDU> ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I certainly agree with Jessica that it's better to have a single index that is as good as you can create it. As a reference librarian, I can say with some assurance that people hate multiple look-ups, be they in card catalogs, printed indexes or on-line. In fact, there are several studies showing that people in fact are not inclined to continue looking beyond the first or second possibility, even when they are fully aware that more than one exists. When I've told patrons that something is either X or Y, the response has been: "Tell me which is better, X or Y. I don't want to search in more than one place" [under more than one entry, or, in more than one catalog]. The more sophisticated users, of course, continue to search in other places after drawing a blank the first time, but, as I said, these are sophisticated users. An index is designed to guide the user -- this is where it really helps to know for what audience the book is intended -- when help is needed, and that help should be in the simplest form possible. On the one hand, we can't count on the person to continue searching, and on the one hand, as professionals, we should strive to make the user's search as quick and efficient as we possibly can. Otherwise, why even bother with an index? Given sufficient time and diligence, a person probably could find almost anything eventually by carefully searching each page, if it is there. AnnMarie Mitchell, Librarian for Romance Collections Research Services & Collection Development Dept. University of California (Berkeley) (amitchel@library.berkeley.edu) and current President, ASI, Golden Gate Chapter =========================================================================