Hello, When talking with newer indexers and people considering a career in indexing, I often get the question, “But when am I ready to begin freelancing?” Which is a very good question. Especially working alone, as freelancers tend to do, it can be tough to gauge our own skills. I often feel like responding, “You’re probably ready right now. Go for it.” And maybe they are ready, and maybe they are not. I’d need to learn more about their experience and see some of their work to have a better...
13 days ago • 2 min read
Hello, Fall is off to a roaring start for me. September was busy. October is so far a little slower, which is good as I am still catching up on projects I didn’t complete in September. And November and December are shaping up to also be full. With a full schedule also comes scheduling challenges. Part of this is on my end, if I underestimate how long an index will take to write or if something else comes up that sets me back. Running late on one project can snowball into the next, and before...
27 days ago • 3 min read
Hello, To all of you Canadians, in particular, a blessed National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, also known as Orange Shirt Day, remembering all those who attended Indian residential schools, especially those who died. This morning my wife and I attended the opening ceremony at Fort Edmonton Park. An older Indigenous man was angry and shouting prior to the ceremony, though I wasn’t close enough to hear what about. As part of her opening prayer, the presiding Elder acknowledged this man and...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Hello, As you’ve probably noticed, AI is still around, being pushed and integrated into almost everything. I find it interesting talking to friends and colleagues about whether and how they use AI. There are a few instances where it seems genuinely useful, but more often than not it still seems like a waste of time, designed by people who don’t actually understand the work that people do. I’ve written before about AI, here in 2023 and again in 2024. I’ve been thinking for a few months about...
about 2 months ago • 8 min read
Hello, I’ve gotten a few questions recently about increasing speed while indexing, including last week’s Q&A about subheadings. And while these are good questions and we can certainly discuss specific ways to increase speed, I think it is also important to keep in mind the foundations of speed, which I learned twenty years ago while learning how to plant trees. Tree planting, if you are unfamiliar, is seasonal work in which crews of mostly young people replant forests after the loggers have...
2 months ago • 5 min read
Hello, Thank you to everyone who participated in my survey last month, asking what more I might do to help you continue to grow and learn in indexing. The responses are very helpful. A monthly Q&A received the most votes. So I am going to give that a try, starting today. I will reply to a new question on the last Tuesday of every month. I’ve created a simple survey for you to submit questions. You can find the survey here. I have also included a link in the footer below, so you can ask a...
2 months ago • 8 min read
Hello, I want to write today about a request I receive maybe a couple of times a year, which is to update a previously written index. The usual advice is to avoid updating and to rewrite the index from scratch. The rationale, as counterintuitive as it may seem, is that rewriting the index is often easier and faster than mucking about in the original index. And yet, is rewriting always the best option? Like almost everything in indexing, it depends. I updated an index last month and decided to...
3 months ago • 6 min read
Hello, Last week was a strange work week for me. I had two indexing tasks to complete, neither of which I typically do or enjoy. The week felt like a long grind, like I wasn’t really indexing even though I was. My first and primary task was to update an index for a revised edition of a book I originally indexed in 2022. Instead of rewriting the index from scratch, I agreed to update the original index, which ended up being more work than I anticipated. I still think updating the index was the...
4 months ago • 6 min read
Hello, I am back home and catching up on sleep after attending the Indexing Society of Canada/Société canadienne d’indexation (ISC/SCI)’s annual conference, held this year at the University of British Columbia (UBC), in Vancouver. I enjoy attending the Canadian conferences. Being Canadian myself, ISC/SCI feels like “my” society in a way that the American Society for Indexing (ASI) doesn’t, even though I am currently a member of both and ASI has a lot to offer too. It is a treat to see and...
5 months ago • 3 min read