Two Books, Four Indexes
Adventures in indexing citations and subjects
This post is a throwback to the end of December, when I finished indexing two religious books. Each one received an index locorum and a subject index.
Indexes locorum, or indexes of locations, are essentially indexes of citations. They are most commonly associated with theological, classical, or legal works, but really they can be used for anything. For example, an index locorum of Bible verses will note the pages in which the author(s) mention specific Bible verses. This index locorum — not my own work — demonstrates one in which many different works have been cited, and those citations have in turn been indexed.
In Kate Mertes’ words, the book being indexed might “quote very precisely, and fairly frequently, a specific text, and those specific textual references are something that can be of great interest to people that are reading the book.”
So, on that note…
The books & abstracts:
“Answers to Unanswered Questions of Life and Religion, by Wm. Edwin Jacobs. (Click here to access the index.)
Using a list of questions provided by congregation members and other friends, the author relies on biblical sources and his educational background in theology to provide answers to common questions that arise in daily life.
Magnificent Journey, by Wm. Edwin Jacobs. (Click here to access the index.)
An adaptation of the author’s Master’s thesis, the book uses a hike through the woods on a mountainside as a plot driver for this meditation on the passage of time, interaction between humanity and nature, and God’s role in the world.
These books are a special case
The author was my dad, who died in 2015. My mom is now the owner of several dozen of the remaining copies of each book. Victory Publishing Company was started by my parents when “Answers to Unanswered Questions of Life and Religion” was to be published.
Around Spring of 2022, I started this project of my own accord, and made some slow progress as I was simultaneously getting my business running.
In order to prepare for this project, I reviewed notes from an ASI online course (in three sessions) by Kate Mertes on indexing theology, spirituality, and religion, which I attended at the time of its recording. I also found and immediately registered for access to another webinar by Mertes on Indexes Locorum. Once I had essentially finished the indexes to “Answers” book, I did seek feedback in an index review listserv and got some very helpful comments which I weighed and applied accordingly.
In November, my mom officially hired me to index the books.
When I took on this project, I had several motivations: first, a personal reason, I wanted to give my dad’s books new life; second, as a service to readers, I wanted to provide an index to two books that I thought needed it — especially since part of the target audience is church reading groups, an index could come in handy for discussion or reference; third, I wanted to practice doing indexes locorum because it is a kind of indexing I have potential interest in pursuing but previously had no experience with.
The fourth and final motivation was the realization that I had, at the time, exactly zero examples of my indexing work available directly on my website, and I wanted this number to change.
Loca for locorums
Some frustrations of the “Answers” project, which I indexed first: a
A few quotations cite the person but not the work that the quoted text was from.
Some quotations, such as riddles, “old sayings” and poems, are not cited at all, or if they are, the author is unknown.
The non-biblical sources referenced, assuming the author/work is cited, the page number is not, which does not allow for the precision associated with indexes locorum.
Can these, then, be included in the index locorum?
That was my thinking when I started out, that I would have three sections to the index locorum: Old Testament; New Testament; Non-biblical works. But, as I worked, I realized that this was probably not the best way to structure the index.
Since the book has already been published and the author is not around to answer these and other questions, and since edits cannot be made to a pre-publication set of proofs to remedy any inconsistencies in the text, I erred on the side of inclusivity and changed my approach to indexing the books.
I chose to include non-biblical works referenced in the subject index, along with the authors if they were named. My reasoning for this was that, even though it would make the subject index considerably longer, the phrases, riddles, and poems quoted were memorable and relevant, and might be something that a reader might want to turn back to.
An interesting note about the “Magnificent Journey” book is that it’s part autobiography — with some anecdotes about the author’s life as they relate to the overall topic, part narrative about a trek through the woods on a mountainside in Winter, and part religious/philosophical meditation. I was torn between the most basic concept that every page gets indexed, and the idea that the trek was essentially a mechanism to drive the plot and not something that readers would likely want to look up. So, does the trek get indexed? If so, how? How did I treat the trek? (…I tell you the answer in the headnote to the index.)
Fortunately, both books are short and changing my approach to the book partway through did not have serious time repercussions.
Delightfully, when space is truly not an issue the needs of the reader really can come first! That being said, an index that’s as long as the text being indexed is not just absurd to think about, it’s not at all helpful, so I did my best to balance thoroughness with utility.
And with that, I announce (and provide a lot of details about) the last of my 2022 indexing jobs. :)
Ciao for now…i.e., quia nunc vale.