Sue Penny, BA(Hons), DipLib, PGDE, MA, MSocInd (Adv).

Location: Tobermory

Membership Grade: Advanced Professional Member

Contact Info

Phone: 07501437842
Mobile: 07501 437842
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://penny.scot/

Social Links

General Experience

I am friendly, conscientious, reliable and will always meet your deadlines.  I look forward to working with you on your indexing project, whether it is academic, educational, trade, or self-published.

My interests and knowledge span the arts, humanities and social sciences.  I specialise in history, literature, art, and education.  Other subjects covered include natural history, equestrian sports, gardening, rural life and the outdoors: it’s always a pleasure to work on new and unexpected subjects.

My degrees are in English Literature (BA Hons) and Victorian Studies(MA).  I am a Chartered Librarian, and a trained primary school teacher with long experience of working in both the English and the Scottish education systems.

Subjects

-History and The Past

MA Victorian Studies (Birkbeck College, University of London).

From earliest times to the present day, and from broad brushstrokes to intimate detail… I am equally happy to index works on World history and great events, or the local history of an area or even a street. For my MA I specialised in Victorian crime, 19th Century art, and Ireland; and as an undergraduate I studied Anglo-Saxon art and archaeology, and Greek and Roman drama and epic. I am particularly interested in social history and the lived experience of the past, and in Scottish history.

Indexes include:
Latin American and Human Rights Politics in West Germany by Felix Jiménez Botta
Children of the Third Reich: Three Pasts, Three Futures by Catrine Clay
Victims and Criminal Justice edited by Pamela Cox
Wild History by James Crawford
Mamluks, Conquest and Culture: The Ghurid Empire and Early Delhi Sultanate c.1150–1236 by Mark Kerr-Smiley
War Paths by Alistair Moffat
Women in Exile in Early Modern Europe and the Americas edited by Linda Levy Peck and Adrianna Bakos
Teaching and Learning the Archaeology of the Contemporary Era edited by Gabriel Moshenska
Tyninghame: Landscapes and Lives by Judy Riley
Seven Rivers. A voyage through the Currents of Human History by Vanessa Taylor
Up All Night. A History of Going Out by Imogen Willets

Modern History

Architecture, Empire, and Trade. The United Africa Company by Iain Jackson
Taken as Red, Highs and Lows of the Labour Party, 1924-2019 by Richard Temple

Local History

Neither here nor there. Migration: Irish and Scots in Dumbarton and the Vale of Leven 1855-1900 by Charles Docherty

Art History

I’m especially interested in British Art, particularly art of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Indexes include:
Totem: The Untold Story of Sculpture by Jo Baring
Art and Action: Painting for Social Change in Victorian England by Chloe Ward
Visual Counterculture in Japan by Marco Bohr
Philippine Figurine by Patrick Flores
Illustration: A Concise History by Andrew Hall
Sustainable Fashion, Migrants, Embroidery by Alessandra Lopez y Royo
Portrayals of Women in Early Twentieth-Century China by Sandy Ng
Art of Ukraine by Alisa Lozhkina
Modern Painting by Simon Morley
Philosophy and Art in Southeast Asia by Melvin Chen

Fashion/Style

Sustainable fashion, migrants, embroidery by Alessandra Lopez Y Royo

English Literature

BA(Hons) English Literature (University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne).

I studied all periods from the Anglo-Saxons onwards, with additional modules in Australian and Russian Literature, and Greek and Roman drama and epic. Children’s literature is a particular passion.

Indexes include:
The Moment in the Rose Garden: A New Reading of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets by David Ashton
Yassified Shakespeare: Gender Performance and Critical ShaxDrag by Trevor Boffone and Danielle Rosvally
Victorian Girls and their Manuscript Magazines, 1860-1900 by Lois Burke
Literature and Natural Theology in Early Modern England by Katherine Calloway
Global Bunyan and Visual Art ed Katherine Calloway and Angelica Duran
The Birth of the Financial Thriller. Making a Killing in the 1970s by Mikkel Krause Frantzen
Victorian Paper Art and Craft: Writers and Their Materials by Deborah Lutz
Staging Beckett in London by Matthew McFrederick
Border Politics in Novels by European Women in Translation by Pam Morris
Graveyard Gothic edited by Eric Parisot, David McAllister and Xavier Aldana Reyes
Shakespeare/Play edited by Emma Whipday

Drama/Theatre

Staging Beckett in London by Matthew McFrederick
Shakespeare/Play edited by Emma Whipday
Yassified Shakespeare: Gender Performance and Critical ShaxDrag by Trevor Boffone and Danielle Rosvally

Dance

Martha Graham’s Greek Myth-Based Dances and Her Collaboration with Isamu Noguchi by Robbie Ancona

Cinema and Film

A New History of Animation by Maureen Furniss and Jeremy Speed Schwartz

Music

Iron Maiden: Infinite Dreams

Classical Studies

Classical Antiquity and Medieval Ireland edited by Clarke, Poppe and Torrance
Conversing with Chaos in Graeco-Roman Antiquity edited by Esther Eidinow and Christopher Schliephake
Politics of Language. Foreign Nativeness and Identity in the Roman Empire by Eleni Bozia
The Economics of War in Ancient Greece edited by Roel Konijnendijk and Manu Dal Borgo

Scotland

Hebridean Journey by Brigid Benson
Wild History by James Crawford
Neither Here Nor There. Migration: Irish and Scots in Dumbarton and the Vale of Leven by Charles Docherty
War Paths
by Alistair Moffat
Tyninghame by Judy Riley

Africa

Architecture, Empire, and Trade. The United Africa Company by Iain Jackson
The Police, the State and the Congo Cop by Michel Thill

Asia

Visual Counterculture in Japan. Political Shifts and the Dynamics of Resistance by Marco Bohr
Philosophy and Art in Southeast Asia by Melvin Chen
Medical Education and the Making of Iraqi Doctors 1869-1959 by Sara Farhan
Mamluks, Conquest and Culture. The Ghurid Empire & early Delhi Sultanate c.1150–1236 by Mark Kerr-Smiley

South America

Dress, Fashion and National Identity in Puerto Rico by José Blanco F. and Raúl J. Vázquez-López
Latin America and Human Rights Politics in West Germany, 1973–1990 by Felix A. Jiménez Botta

Horticulture

Citrus. A World History by David J Mabberley
Growing Spaces. – A History of the Allotment Movement by Lesley Acton
Tyninghame by Judy Riley

Natural History

Alive: The Hidden Intelligence of the Living World by Melanie Challenger

Transport

Quest for Speed: an Illustrated History of High-Speed Trains from Rocket to Bullet and Beyond by Derek Hayes

Education (All Areas)

PGDE Primary Education (University of the Highlands and Islands).

Ab Initio Language Teaching in British Higher Education
A number of titles in the Issues series of PSHE resources.

Finance

How to Fund the Life You Want by Robin Powell and Jonathan Hollow

-Sports and Games

The Pinnacle of Fame. 200 Years of the World’s Oldest Competitive Rowing Club by William O’Chee

Related qualifications

Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (MCLIP)
Diploma in Information and Library Studies - Aberystwyth University


Other skills

Recent indexes include

Edmiston, Amanda, Collected Curiosities. More stories and recipes from the historical apothecary cabinet, David & Charles, 2026
Hammond, Claudia, Overwhelmed, Canongate, 2026
Willets, Imogen, Up All Night. A History of Going Out, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2026
Powell, Robin and Jonathan Hollow, How to Fund the Life You Want, Bloomsbury , 2026
Flores, Patrick, Philippine Figurine: Image, Ornament and Art, National Gallery Singapore, 2026
Clay, Catrine, Children of the Third Reich: Three Pasts, Three Futures, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2026
Boffone, Trevor and Danielle Rosvally, Yassified Shakespeare: Gender Performance and Critical ShaxDrag, The Arden Shakespeare, 2026
Ward, Chloe, Art and Action: Painting for Social Change in Victorian England, Oxford University Press, 2026
Ashton, David, The Moment in the Rose Garden: A New Reading of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, James Clarke & Co Ltd, 2026
Baring, Jo, Totem: The Untold Story of Sculpture, Canongate, 2026

Clients Include

Amsterdam University Press
Birlinn
Bloomsbury
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Cambridge University Press
Canongate
David and Charles
Edinburgh University Press
Happy Yak
HarperCollins
Independence Educational Publishers
Manchester University Press
Orion
Oxford University Press
Palgrave Macmillan
Thames and Hudson
UCL Press
Unicorn Publishing Group
Vision Sports Publishing
Weidenfeld and Nicolson
and books by independent publishers

Special Publication Type

Children's Books And Materials

As a former school librarian, I have a good understanding of how children and young adults search for information, and this experience is invaluable in indexing texts for this age group.

Recent indexes include:
titles in the Issues series, aimed at 14-18 year olds, including Anti-bullying; Body image and self esteem; Challenging racism; Cost of living crisis; Protecting our privacy; Sexual health and STIs
Earth’s Biggest Show-Offs for Happy Yak, an imprint publishing accessible non-fiction for children aged 0-7

Tools

SKY INDEX
INDEX MANAGER