Adding Value without Adding Meaning

A Note on what indexers do

The role of an indexer is to make information in a specific document, or set of documents, findable to readers who are unfamiliar with the text at hand.¹

Indexers add value to a document by providing a map for readers — in a book, that map is an alphabetical listing of concepts and names.

Good indexing practice calls for this to be done without changing meaning or adding value statements about a topic.

The information in an index should be the same information that is found in the book, just presented in a way that makes it easy to find by someone unfamiliar with the text. Essentially, authors make statements and readers draw their own conclusions, the indexer is simply there to point readers in the direction of those statements.

Ideological disagreement should never affect an indexer’s treatment of the topic
or the way it is presented.

For example, an (imaginary) author writes about children and their bedtime routines, playtime, and how in public, children should be seen and not heard. The indexer may or may not agree with the author’s comments, but ideological disagreement should never affect the treatment of the topic or the way it is presented.²

The aforementioned discussion of children may look something like this, in the index: 

children    
    bedtimes    
    behavior, in public
    playtime

It should not, however, look like this:

children    
    bedtimes    
    outdated ideas about
    playtime

— What constitutes an “outdated idea?” For the indexer, it might be their public behavior, but for the reader, an outdated idea could be that children should even have a bedtime routine at all.

The only reason that a subheading such as “outdated ideas about”³ should be included is if the author talked about those ideas in that way, calling them outdated. Similarly, if the author had used the phrase “old fashioned” the subheading would likely include “old fashioned,” (rather than “outdated”) to mirror the author’s terminology in reference to that section of the text.

This method of reflecting the vocabulary of the book in the index helps readers understand the tone of the book as they browse the index, it gives readers clues as to what to look for when skimming the text itself for the terms found in the index, and it reduces the likelihood of indexer misinterpretation.

In short: indexers add value to a text without adding to, or changing, its meaning.

1. I really only talk about indexing books here, but there are many kinds of publications that get indexed, including: websites; documents in a database, which use controlled vocabularies; or laws, which is a whole other topic in itself — but the central message here applies to any kind of indexing. (This is also a blog post.)

2. The topic of neutrality in information services (including indexing) was discussed in a previous blog/Substack post.

3. The format or wording of subheadings (and the use of trailing prepositions) depends on several factors including client or indexer style/preferences, context and relation of the subheading to the main heading, available space, and readability.
Less wordy subheadings (and footnotes!) are better because they’re easier to read and can be less confusing than if they go on and on...