News
The Society of Indexers: benefits of membership
Posted on: 25/11/2025
What can you gain from joining the Society of Indexers? How do we support our members to develop their indexing skills and businesses? In this post, indexer Susan Penny explores the advantages being a member of the Society can provide. Indexers are life’s swans. We create indexes that sail gracefully into the book world, allowing
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What is embedded indexing?
Posted on: 22/10/2025
While most indexes are still compiled from page proofs, some indexes are embedded, where the index entries are added as tags or codes to a manuscript file. In this blog post Tanya Izzard – who actually enjoys embedded indexing – explains how the process works and when clients might need or want to use embedded indexing
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Authors as Indexers
Posted on: 08/10/2025
Should authors index their own books, or is the job best left to professional indexers? In this post, indexer and author David Green explores the pros and cons of self-indexing. Are authors the best people to index their own work? Certainly, they know their subject matter inside out, and they understand the book’s structure and
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Society of Indexers 2025 conference booking now open
Posted on: 11/06/2025
We are delighted to announce that booking is now open for the Society of Indexers 2025 in-person conference, ‘The Heart and Mind of Indexing’, at Edgbaston Park Hotel and Conference Centre, University of Birmingham, Friday 19 to Sunday 21 September. Details on the programme timetable, session content, venue and accommodation, booking and payment information are now
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Ask the Indexers: indexer self-talk
Posted on: 20/05/2025
What’s the phrase or saying that our panel of experts repeat to themselves over the course of their work? Nic Nicholas, Fellow “Does this entry make sense?” Also “Remember to be consistent”. Marian Aird, Advanced Professional Member Will the reader look for this? Will they find anything useful if they do? Christine Boylan, Advanced Professional
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Ask the Indexers: tables of contents and headings
Posted on: 01/05/2025
Texts can be structured in lots of ways: chapter titles formed into tables of contents, section headings and subheadings, numbered sections or paragraphs. How do indexers use these in their work? Sue Penny, Advanced Professional Member I quite like printing off the contents page so I can tick off each chapter as I finish it,
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The politics of indexing
Posted on: 27/03/2025
Indexers strive for equity and objectivity in their work, but indexes – like all other texts – have political implications. For our National Indexing Day blog, indexer Tanya Izzard looks at how indexing gets political, and how indexers respond to that. I was at a party a few years ago and was explaining what I
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CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS, SOCIETY OF INDEXERS 2025 CONFERENCE
Posted on: 12/03/2025
Conference title: ‘The Heart and Mind of Indexing’ Date: Friday 19 September to Sunday 21 September 2025 Venue: The Writers’ Suite, Edgbaston Park Hotel and Conference Centre, University of Birmingham, UK Call for submissions Following our successful 2024 online conference, the Society of Indexers invites submissions for our 2025 in-person conference at Edgbaston Park Hotel
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Ask the Indexers: reference sources
Posted on: 11/03/2025
Reference sources are vital in indexing work to verify names. What are the most useful ones for our panel of expert indexers? Do they prefer hard copy or online reference sources? Some of the reference sources named are out of print. It’s worth keeping an eye on indexer forums, as retiring indexers will often have
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Ask the Indexers: dealing with setbacks
Posted on: 18/02/2025
For this post, we asked the indexers how they deal with setbacks: scheduling changes, unhappy clients, or other problems that can disrupt their work. Michelle Brumby, Advanced Professional Member I do try not to let events over which I have little control, such as schedule changes or demanding clients, affect me too much, which can
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Indexing and… librarianship
Posted on: 04/02/2025
Many of the Society of Indexers’ members combine indexing with other work. In this post, professional indexer Carlos Garcia-Jane discusses combining indexing with librarianship. My background I am a qualified, professional librarian and have worked at The British Museum and the Royal Academy of Dance; I now work full-time as Project Librarian at the Royal
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National Indexing Day 2025
Posted on: 20/01/2025
The Society of Indexers is celebrating National Indexing Day for the ninth successive year on Thursday 27 March 2025. This year we will be celebrating with a half-day in-person workshop for publishing professionals in London, as well as online across social media with the tag #IndexDay. The workshop will be run twice on the day,
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