FAQs
Who owns this website?
This website is a joint venture, owned by the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers (ANZSI) with oversight by an editorial committee and run with the approval of all the societies and networks signed up to the International Agreement of Indexing Societies and collaborating through the International Committee of Representatives of Indexing Societies (ICRIS).
Why is an index important?
A good index is a vital component of a non-fiction book, providing a structured map to its content. Poor or absent book indexes are frustrating for readers, reviewers and students, as regularly remarked upon in book reviews and on social media.
What kinds of media are involved in the production of an index?
Most people are familiar with the indexes found in the back of books. Traditionally, the indexer works from a PDF of the book’s final page proofs. The resulting index is delivered in the form of an MS Word document or other platform specified by the book designer.
Instead of the page proofs PDF, the indexer may work directly with the book in Word, InDesign, or other publishing software. In this case, the indexer will embed the index entries into the body of the book. The resulting product will be an ebook with an embedded index, but it can also be published as a print book.
Other media that indexers may work in include HTML, XML, and LaTeX.
Can software replace indexers?
Dedicated indexing software can automate certain tasks. With embedded indexing technologies, for example, index entries can be anchored and linked to their precise location in the text, so that the same index can work across different formats and with reflowable text in ebooks. Today’s professional indexers have both the know-how and the technology to achieve this.
However, a human indexer is still needed for the intellectual work.
Take an ebook, for example. A Ctrl-F search doesn’t distinguish between significant information and passing mentions. It doesn’t suggest synonymous access points unmentioned in the text, or highlight connections between concepts, or show the relative content and coverage of topics. Professional book indexers are trained to address these issues and to look at each text from the readers’ perspectives.
Generative AI (artificial intelligence) tools, such as chatbots based on LLMs (large language models), have been unable to produce a proper index.
As long as computers can’t read like a human, they can’t index like one.