Search

Hazel Bell considers various approaches to the organization of poetry by theme and the indexing of poetry, and asks whether subject indexing of poetry is feasible, examining examples from the I8th century onwards.

1. The earliest, historically, is most certainly by the 16thcentury ‘father of bibliography’, Conrad Gessner, hailed by Hans Wellisch as also the first compiler of multilingual and multiscript indexes (Wellisch, 1978). His Historia Animalium, published in five volumes from 1551 to 1554, included indexes to the names of four-footed animals in Latin, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, German, French, Spanish, English, Polish, Russian and Czech, all printed in separate sequences by language; the Greek and Hebrew names were shown in the original scripts, Arabic and Persian were partially transliterated, partially rendered in Hebrew letters. All entries were alphabetized letter by letter.

This part of the History returns to the Society of Indexers in the UK and traces a further ten years of development.

Describes the compilation of a cumulative index to 37 books and two batches of letters by Angela Thirkell, and considers what such an index may show about an author.

In its second decade, the Society of Indexers welcomed and assisted the formation of three affiliated societies: the American Society of Indexers (ASI), The Australian Society of Indexers (AusSI) and the Indexing and Abstracting Society of Canada (IASC/SCAD).

Discusses the differences between indexing printed and electronic texts, and between technical and «soft» types, and suggests that regulations and standards now adopted for indexing meet the requirements of electronic information retrieval and technical texts, but not of traditional, extra-disciplinary book indexing. The unorthodox, individual index may have much merit

Considers what features of texts make them appropriate or necessary to be supplied with an index, and distinguishes between informational and literary text. Serious fiction is seen as comprising elements of both types of text, and the particular difficulties of indexing it, and the value of indexes to fiction, are considered

Le quatrieme volet de cette histoire des societes d'indexation couvre les annees 1992 a 1995. La periode est marquee par le developpement des relations internationales et des technologies. Les publications et les activites de l'American Society of Indexers, de l'Indexing and Abstracting Society of Canada, de l'Australian Society of Indexers et de la Society of Indexers sont rapportees.

Considers the problems and benefits of preparing indexes to fiction, with reference to the novels of A.S. Byatt. Fiction is approached by its readers in many ways – enjoyed, reviewed, studied, analysed, criticized-rarely, however, indexed. Why not? The necessity to provide indexes for any serious works of nonfiction that are likely to be consulted or reread has long been established. Both these criteria apply equally to good fiction. So why is so little of it indexed? The indexing of fiction has indeed been undertaken from time to time. There are three major types of such indexes: at one extreme the seriously informative, dictionary-type, consolidated indexes to such major, in quality and quantity, works as those of Proust, Hardy and Dickens. These may extend to dictionaries of characters, and such complete expositions as Hilary Spurling's detailed and valuable guide to works of art, places, characters and events in her Handbook to Anthony Powell's Music of Time.(1) At the other extreme lies the 'index as game' jeu d'esprit, as in Clive James's Brilliant Creatures,(2) Malcolm Bradbury's Mensonge,(3) Perec's Life: a user's manual (4) – intended mainly to coruscate and amuse – and indeed amusing indexers immensely. Between these types lie serious, individual novels which might be indexed in the same way as biographies or histories, as narratives concerning groups of people. In the October 1989 issue of The Indexer, Philip Bradley surveyed 'Indexes to works of fiction: the views of producers and users on the need for them', concluding, 'Indexes to fiction ... on the whole are not wanted by novelists, reviewers, readers or publishers ... there was a feeling that novels are not the sort of books that need to be indexed'.(5) In our following issue Anthony Raven retorted, 'Within the context of a book, i.e. within the purview of its index, all facts are equally factual, regardless of whether they also enjoy a different kind of factuality beyond the book's covers'.(6) There are indeed those who require indexes to fiction. I turned to the indexing of works of fiction unsolicited, on the pleasure principle. If I must lend so much attention to a text, I wanted it to be a worthwhile and rewarding one. I looked for novels so complex and loaded with ideas as well as characters as to need helpful adjuncts -and fell on the books of A.S. Byatt.

Indicates the betrayal of subjective opinion in indexing in five classes: reinforcement of the opinions of the author; deliberate interpolation of the attitudes of the indexer; rigid classification systems' imposing assumptions; the selection of terminology implying attitudes; and suppression of ideas from the text in the index. Most important and pervasive is the selection and limitation of language

Discusses indexes as works of fiction in their own right, or as components of other fiction works. Includes detailed discussion of the fictional index to Nabokov's Pale fire and its contribution to the text of the work.

Considers the views of five different classes concerned with indexes: users, subjects, authors, publishers, and regulators; with their sometimes incompatible expectations and demands.

During more than twenty years as editor of newsletters and journals (of five different societies), Hazel Bell has attended many a workshop, seminar and conference, with responsibility for reporting...