Angie Hipkin, BA DipLib

My indexing experience in this field includes many aspects of the scientific study of animals and plants. I specialise in botany and ornithology (see below) but welcome commissions on all natural history subjects. I am becoming increasingly interested in entomology through indexes to James Lowen’s books, such as Much Ado about Mothing.

Commissions have involved indexing flowers, fungi and trees, economic plants and botanical art. One index that included many of these aspects was for The Bauers: Joseph, Franz & Ferdinand by Hans Walter Lack, published by Prestel. This title received the International Association of Plant Taxonomists’ Stafleu medal. In the Name of Plants by Sandra Knapp, published by the Natural History Museum, also drew on historical biography to celebrate the people behind botanical names.

Apart from field guides, I have also indexed local and international species studies, directories of birding sites, conservation status studies and species atlases for a range of publishers. Tracks & Signs of the Birds of Britain and Europe for Bloomsbury was a particularly interesting field guide to index.

Exciting new technologies have enabled research to be undertaken further back in geological time and fresh fossil discoveries are constantly being uncovered. In the field of paleozoology, I indexed Darren Naish’s book Ancient Sea Reptiles, published by Quarto and Smithsonian Books in 2023.

Many subjects overlap in historical studies and make for challenging indexing. One project, combining historical biography with politics and voyages of scientific discovery, involved compiling a series of six indexes over three years to the letters of Sir Joseph Banks for the volumes of The Indian and Pacific Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768-1820, edited by Neil Chambers, published by Pickering and Chatto. Another fascinating historical index commission was for Jane Kilpatrick and Jennifer Harmer’s The Galanthophiles: 160 Years of Snowdrop Devotees, published by Orphans Publishing.

The study of human societies and cultures is an intriguing and varied area to index, encompassing everything from the populist to the academic. An example of the latter was the index to Built in Niugini: Constructions in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea by Paul Sillitoe, published by Sean Kingston Publishing for a Royal Anthropological Institute series.

Environmentalism, human rights and politics are my specialisms in this field. Index commissions have included Rainbow Warriors by Maite Mompo of Greenpeace, and Vijah Mehta’s How Not to Go to War: Establishing Departments for Peace and Peace Centres Worldwide, both published by the New Internationalist.

Creativity attracts me to books on these subjects. I was commissioned to index the series of master classes Draping: The Complete Course, 2nd ed. by Karolyn Kiisel, published by Laurence King.

Commissions have included Rob and Michelle Comins’Tales of the Tea Trade (Pavilion Books), Oz Clarke’s English Wine (HarperCollins) and Bre Graham’s Table for Two (Dorling Kindersley).

Knowledge of geography and place names has been relevant to most subjects indexed. It has not only brought me to indexing maps and atlases, but also descriptive travellers’ guides, such as Anita Sethi’s acclaimed I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain, published by Bloomsbury.