CORRESPONDENCE

Electronic indexing bers. The writer can recall the index even when it is only partially completed. Dear Sir, The members of the Society may be in At the meeting there was a copy of a terested in some ideas on electronic index sample index made up in this fashion ing presented on March 31st at a meeting from one of the experimental projects. It of the New York Metropolitan Chapter of seemed to be a usable index, although the American Documentation Institute. rather simplified. The speaker was Pat F. Santorelli of IBM; I discussed this with Mr. Santorelli. He his topic,' Book Production by Computer'. said that within the framework of the pre Mr. Santorelli is in charge of the design sent experimental system a writer could of an experimental system to produce create a more complex index if he wished. technical manuals by computers. A large Entries could be added in a special col number of writers at special typewriters umn on the right-hand side of the copy. (technically called' terminals ') write copy, Heads that did notappear in the copy which is fed into a computer. The com could be added, as well as modifiers in puter performs all sorts of chores auto the form of subs and sub-subs. Also, sim matically: places and styles heads, foot ple categories of entries could be auto notes, and bibliography; hyphenates ac matically indexed, for example, proper cording to rules; corrects spellings; justi names or trademarks. But Mr. Santorelli fies lines; makes tables of contents; pagin said that at this timethey did not con ates; etc. Printed copy is returned imme template such complex indexing, although diately to the writer to be corrected then it would be technically feasible within the or at his leisure. system. The writer can at any time switch from They also plan an optical scanner, the automatic styling to an ' as-is-mode ', which would bring part of a manuscript in which printed copy is returned to him on to a screen and allow proof reading exactly as he has typed it For example, either by means of a system of buttons if he were dissatisfied with the automatic keyed to quadrants on the screenor by hyphenation, he could recall a line and means of a ' light pencil'. hyphenate to his own preference. Atany There formed in my mind a picture of time the writer canchange or correct what the indexer of the future. Sans his tradi he has previously written. tional 3x5 cards, he will be sitting be A drawback of the system is that it be fore a screen, typingout hisentries or in comes economical only when used by dicating them with a ' light pencil' as about eighty writers at the same time. page after page of the manuscript flashes This extremely brief description will before him. If he forgets how he handled serve as background for a discussion on some past entry, he presses a button and how they plan to index books. lol there appears before him a printed A writer indexes his book by marking a copy of the partially completed index. bracket around any topic he feels should There would be no waiting for page be indexed. The computer bringsthe proofs or hurried scrambles to meet print printed index back to him with page num ers' deadlines; a book could be indexed

136 as it is written by the author, and the and, thus, demonstrate how books and computer would take care of the pagina reading are essential links in community tion. Nor would there be mistakes in understanding. page numbers either by indexer or printer. The success of our plan depends upon The system would have its greatest ad the co-operation of all sides of national vantage in the indexing of multi-volume life and, clearly, your organisation repre works. Consistency could easily be main sents a most important element in this. tained between the work of many indexers May I ask you, therefore, if you will be on a many-volume encyclopedia by means kind enough to bring this letter to the of instant recall of the partially completed notice of your Council with the request work. that your members be informed about So perhaps some day most indexes will National Library Week through your be automated, but it is difficult to foresee usual channels and thus encouraged to the complete elimination of the solitary support the activities at local level. 3x5 indexer, who after toiling through Yours faithfully, the night for some demented publisher K. C. Harrison, Will turn his back to the east Chairman, National Library Week From whence comforts have increased; Joint Organising Committee. For light doth seize his brain With frantic pain. [Will readers who have any suggestions as to ways in which the Society might Sincerely, co-operate please write to the Hon. Sec Robert J. Palmer. retary immediately.] 15 West 11th Street, New York, N.Y. 10011. Honouring the indexer National Library Week Under the above title the following

Dear Sir, letter from the Society's Chairman was published in the Spring number of The My Committee is organising Great Author. Britain's first National Library Week which will take place from March 14th to Dear Sir, I have read with interest Mr. Fielden March 19th, 1966. As you can see, our Hughes's well-informed article * Introducing the sponsors cover all aspects of the book and Indexer' ** in your Autumn 1964 number. library world and we are honoured in Mr. Fielden Hughes does well to draw atten having H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh, tion to the hitherto enforced anonymity of the K.G., as our patron. indexer but he may rest assured that this is be Our objects are to encourage the read coming more and more a thing of the past. Thanks to the publication last year of the ing of books and other material both for authoritative British Standard on The Prepara education and leisure and to draw at tion of Indexes (B.S.I. 3700: 1964) which tention to the contents and services of strongly recommends that ' for any substantial libraries of all types. We plan, with our index, the qualified indexer, no less than the members' help, to establish local commit illustrator, translator or any other collaborator, should be given proper credit by name in the tees throughout the country, which will publication indexed', publishers seem now far recruit the aid of as many interests as they more willing to name the indexer, either at the can, involve them in the Week's activities head of his index (where I think it should

137 rightly be), or else in the preface or list of ment—with any necessary cross-reference acknowledgments. from the other'. I may be a slow worker but I cannot see my So unlikely, I submit, would an index- self able to ' provide an index for an historical user be to look for the name anywhere work of 420 pages' in anything like as short a other than under * K * that a cross-refer time as ' thirty hours '. ence from 'Smith' should be quite un As regards the vexed question whether an author is the best person to provide his own necessary. index (as so often demanded in publishers' B.S. 3700 does make one exception: contracts), it must be remembered that the first ' when the usage of the owner or country two annual awards of the Library Association's concerned favours inversion \ But I much useful Wheatley Medal 'for an outstanding doubt if this can be claimed in the case of index' have both gone to author-indexers. I have heard it suggested that here the author has a * Kaye-Smith, Sheila'. distinct pull over his professional rival in that I am, Sir, he is able to claim from his publisher almost Yours obediently, unlimited space for his index. At any rate, G. Norman Knight. some of the finest indexes have been compiled 3 Western Mansions, by author-indexers—and some of the worst The truth seems to be that, provided he is will Western Parade, ing to master the technique of indexing, there Barnet, Herts. is no reason why an author should not be the ideal indexer of his own works. Sir, G. Norman Knight. Indexing married women •* Reference was made to this article and to the The reference in your Spring issue Times Literary Supplement's commenting on (p. 92), at the end of Mr. G. Norman it on page 95 of the last Indexer. Knight's letter on indexing peers, to [Since this letter appeared in The Author, the maiden and married names sparks off a Wheatley Medal has again been awarded to an wider question—indexing names of mar author-indexer. See page 117.] ried women generally. There is the addi tional complication that a woman may Sir, figure in a work (or, as an author, may Hyphened proper names write) both before and after marriage. I was somewhat astonished to notice in The American Library Association's the interesting article * Libraries' Heri Cataloguing rules (preliminary 2nd ed., tage ' on p. 83 of the Spring Indexer the 1941), Rule 59, prescribes a heading con following cited with apparent approval: sisting of— Smith, Sheila Kaye-, q. on-reading, 35. married surname, Christian name(s), The name of this well-known Sussex maiden surname in ( ) authoress must occur in countless indexes of course with reference from the last. and cyclopedias, but the foregoing is the In the R.I.B.A. Catalogue, i, 1937, the first occasion I have found it given under undersigned substituted [ ], and added— the second of the two hyphened elements. commonly-used style (where this was The British Standard on the Prepara so) with husband's Christian name tion of Indexes (B.S. 3700: 1964) is fairly Thus, for a certain lady who was Eugenie explicit on this point: ' Compound proper Sellers and married one Arthur Strong— names, whether hyphened or not, should STRONG, Eugenie [SELLERS], Mrs. be indexed under the first surname or ele Arthur Strong

138 Obviously, in a catalogue, all one person's OUR CONTRIBUTORS works must go together, but her style in each work can be indicated (by initials Dr. J. Edwin Holmstrom, M.I.C.E., where possible) after the title, e.g. by F.I.L., FJJnf.S., has had a varied career 'E. Sellers', or 'E. Strong', or 'Mrs. A. first as a civil engineer, then on develop Strong'. ment work in industry, and finally in the In indexing, the same principles apply: Natural Sciences department of Unesco all forms should be given in the main in Paris. He is now a freelance translator, heading; if the married surname is chosen, writer, editor and indexer of technical there should be a reference from the un texts. He is the author of How to take, married one, or conversely; and even if the keep and use notes, Facts, files, and action book does not refer to her life both before in business and public affairs, etc. and after marriage, it may be better, for Mr. L. C. Johnson was Archivist to the thoroughness of information, to include British Transport Commission from 1951 both. to 1961, and was previously Registrar of This, incidentally, raises a still wider the L.M.S.R. Capital Register. He is question: indexing would probably im Chairman of the Herts. C.C. Record Com prove if all indexers were familiar with mittee, a member of the Council of the cataloguing rules; although nearly half British Records Association, and Vice- the officers and council of our Society, and President of the Society of Archivists. probably a higher proportion of members, are librarians, the others would perhaps Mr. lames C Thornton, M.A., is Sec be well advised to have the code handy as retary of the U.K. and Commonwealth a guide. Branch of the Calouste Gulbenkian Finally: married women are difficult to Foundation. Was previously Deputy Sec deal with—one writes, of course, only ' in- retary of the B.B.C. He has been inti dexically'l—and one may be tempted to mately concerned with publishing, and wish authors would not marry I (The has indexed the centenary edition of writer is, of course, a—reluctant—bache Hazlitt's works inter alia. A Vice-Presi lor.) v . . dent of the Society of Indexers. Yours sincerely, H. V. Moles worth Roberts. Mr. John L. Thornton, F.L.A., is librar ian of St. Bartholomew's Hospital Medical Wellington, Surrey. College Library and the author of a num ber of books on librarianship which will be well known to many of our members. HOW NOT TO INDEX HYMNS He has also written a biography—John Abernethy. ' O Lord, what boots' is quoted by Mr. F. N. Scaife in the Sunday Times, March 15, 1964, as a somewhat astonishing entry * A fascinating book; but it should have in the index to an old hymn book. The had an index'—Maurice Burton, review actual first lines of the hymn referred to ing Ibamba (a book about lions and other are: wild animals) by Wynant Davis Hubbard O Lord, what boots it to recall (Victor Gollancz Ltd.) in the Daily Tele The hours of anguish spent. graph, January 24, 1964.

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