Explorations in Indexing and Abstracting: Pointing, Virtue, and Power

The author gave a test article (about 20 pages long) to an indexer, who came up with 7 or 8 search terms describing the index (the indexer did not produce a complete index to the article). The author compares his computer program, which is full of detailed instructions, plus the necessary human tweaking of the computer search results, with an indexer who was given no instructions at all.

It is patently obvious that any indexer told to "index this article as if it were a book chapter" would produce a much deeper, well thought out index than the seven search terms the author received for his "test" indexer.

In addition, because a computer program was used to produce this book's own index, there are a number of occasions where words are listed in the index simply because they show up on a particular page, not because they are an important topic on the page.

While the books presents an intestering description of computer indexing and makes some important points about including users in the process, its analyses of human indexers display a total lack of the value added service and intellectual decisions that good indexers produce on a regular basis. It is also obvious that the author knows little about indexing, as he otherwise would have known that a list of 7 subject descriptors does not an index make.