@indexosaurus
academic book indexer: interested in how we make sense of the world through the humanities specializing in the arts, esp fine arts, social justice and material culture. Curler, settler 🇨🇦, she/her, & klutz extraordinaire 🏳️🌈 www.fedorakindexing.com
I think it's simultaneously this and the fact that many enthusiasts seem to have a narrow sense of what job tasks are/can look like. There's a lot of "you don't understand what AI can do" coming at some of us and a legitimate response is "you don't understand what I can do, and need to, in my job."
Ask about production process in detail. Many large publishers rely on third party vendors for production who are implementing many cost saving (to them) measures. Those short cuts affect the result, which may show up in your book and can't be fixed unless there is a second printing.
Having an index makes it easier to find something you read in the book a while ago. having an index makes it easier for people to use your book for education purposes, be that teaching or their research/writing
I'd love to index it if you on't have an indexer.
I was burnt out from non-profit management. I liked words, problem solving, project based work and needed the flexibility of working for myself. I was considering editing, saw indexing was part of the training. Remembered a librarian who told that people specialize in indexing. Sold!
If you do this again, I'd suggest looking in the index as a way to find related ideas and the bibliography as a means to find other related books. So many indoctrinated in the digital think the index is "just like the find/search function" but it's much more than that.
Pick up the nearest book. Turn to page 42. Post the second sentence.
"Authors must be prepared to review the index quickly, usually within a day or two of its receipt."
Me too!
No new pictures - where are you mentally?
Great thread on wine pairings for 🎥 🐟🍿🍫 and trivia about all of that and more
Question: You are now forced to have the same job as the main character in the last book you read. What is the job?
Can't it be my current novel, where I've inherited wealth and I pay someone to run the household?
children burns, 1071 Christmas cookies and cookie ornaments, 762 churn freezing, ice cream, 828 coloring Easter eggs, 207 dinner for family and friends, 24 Egg safety, 980
Index in the Joy of Cooking
There’s an excellent and devastatingly thorough article in the latest @indexers.bsky.social journal by Elizabeth Bartmess and Michele Combs demonstrating that LLMs are worthless for indexing
"Writing with Robots" students presented in their unessays yesterday & here are a just few I was especially excited about & I got permission to share
Most unessay projects are accompanied by an "artist’s statement" outlining the argument of the piece—I will try to get to the core of those here+
However the book indexer DID read every word of the indexable part of the book.
If you have your own tome coming out soon start looking for you indexer when you submit your final manuscript. Larger books take longer and not all indexers take on large books. #SkyIndex #Academia 📚🎥🏛️
I don't care how short your NF book is or how well you think you organized it, IT NEEDS AN INDEX. #Academia
Agree that those two are tied for first. While not a question, I didn't know how to respond to "Ugh, that sounds painful".
🎬 Meet a winner: THE SITUATIONSHIP reimagines a 1920s silent film & took third place in the Internet Archive's 2025 Public Domain Day Film Remix Contest.
Now it’s your turn—create a 2–3 min short using public domain works from 1930 & earlier.
ℹ️ Details 👉 blog.archive.org/2025/12/01/2...
I'm obsessed with this stat: "with more than 4,000 degree-granting institutions and fewer than 130 university presses in the United States and Canada, this vital [publishing] infrastructure is directly supported by less than 3 percent of the institutions it benefits"
I actually have a pair of shorts with his face with this exact quote on them.
David Lynch was an ally, and an incredible artist with a beautiful mind. I miss him.
You Were Always on my Mind
Willie Nelson
youtu.be/R7f189Z0v0Y?...
Maybe I didn't love you
Quite as often as I could have
Maybe I didn't treat you
Quite as good as I should have
IndexSky, what do we think about #danceindexing? I don't think it's for me, as I can't focus on reading for understanding and dancing simultaneously. However, I am however about to get into some #danceinvoicing
Received! Thank-you!! (Also haven't been at the mailbox for a bit so likely not as late delivered as it seems)
My current indexing project is about the development of photography programs in post-secondary education in the US and a book I indexed earlier on Minor White last year is showing up in the notes. So nice to external proof of this strange yet wonderful career.
📷 🏛️ 📚 #BookIndexer
Time to upgrade your Crossing-Off Ceremony to hammer it home.
Beware, of upgrade addiction. I am currently at Hire a Skywriter level
I want everyone to the think of the poor production teams having to act on increasingly unhinged requests. They didn't ask for this. They don't deserve this. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Lately I've had queries from friends or new acquaintances asking if I'm worried about AI taking my job, because "surely that's just around the corner". Not worried yet. See the statement on AI and Indexing from the American Society for Indexing (ASI).
asindexing.org/ai-news/stat...
Congratulations!
Will you (or someone else) be writing this up for The Indexer? And the bias of the title, is that the indexer's sense of humour as bias? While a rigid hairdo may be something to laugh at, it could be another person's injury preventing protective headgear which is no laughing matter!
