24 July 2007
Books I really, really, really want to index
Perhaps because most of my indexing work is on books that are rather typical for nonfiction reference books -- technical titles like Measurement, Analysis, and Control Using JMP and resource guides like Dx/Rx: Colorectal Cancer -- I jump for joy when I get something so off the beaten path that I renew my love for this job. For example, I recently completed the index for First Position, a collection of biographies of ballet dancers; more recently, I indexed Sensual Knits and Sensual Crochet, both beautifully photographed books of designs and patterns.
But now, working in the wee hours of the night, I find myself fantasizing about the books that I really, really, really want to index, books that are just asking to be written so that I, Seth Maislin, can be assigned their indexes. So here's my wish list:
Chihuahuas for Dummies
Don't laugh. You probably have no idea just how far-reaching the Dummies series has become since its long-ago inception as a series for computer use. There's Fantasy Football for Dummies, a book about imaginary sports playing; Stretching for Dummies, a book about limbering up, perhaps in advance of reading Sex for Dummies; Guitar for Dummies, Bass Guitar for Dummies, and the upcoming Rock Guitar for Dummies, which I have to believe compete with each other somehow; and Jewish Cooking for Dummies, a book that, dare I say it, would make me feel guilty to own. Nevertheless, let me make myself clear here. Chihuahuas for Dummies is a real book. I want to index the next edition, you see, because I'm dying to see what changes.
10.9 Seconds: The Joey Chestnut Story
(see http://origin.mercurynews.com/valley/ci_6297731 to get the joke) Yes, this book is my own invention, but the fun part about indexing sports books is that they are so completely self-reverential. (Yes, reverential, not referential.) Written by sports geeks for sports geeks, the authors' language captures the awe-hubris-humor combination achieved by fans and record-breakers when it comes to the sport that is most of their life. It doesn't matter what the sport is, either, so I'm all for those esoteric things like Ultimate Frisbee (I was offered such a book once) and so on. I recently indexed the comprehensive Chasing the Hunter's Dream, a directory of hunting opportunities around the world. This book included both descriptions of "dream hunts" -- think lion hunts in Africa -- and an entire section in the back dedicated to recipes, including a few meals for squirrels -- I mean, of squirrels. And I mentioned First Position in my intro, where at times I felt like I was reading an artist's diary.
How to Work My Body: A Manual
There are a number of sex books out there -- including one for Dummies -- and most of them have indexes. I just finished indexing Him and Her, short and photograph-filled manuals of the sexes, along with instructions to make them work. And I do mean "work": the book about men attempts to explain why they tend not to do chores around the house. (Oh come on, you didn't think I'd use an erotic example of "work", did you? :-) These books, produced by the same group of people who made Sensual Crochet, were a joy of sex to index, especially once I realized that most of the anatomy-filled books that I index are about abnormal anatomy: prostate disorders (100 Questions and Answers About Prostate Diseases), gunshot wounds (Criminal Investigation, 2nd edition), and the like. And unlike the traditionally polite sex-instruction book, Him and Her are more about the art than the words -- something that, for eunuchs at least, would make the indexing go much faster.
The user manual to anything only cool people own
I had the honor of indexing the user manual to the Class E series Mercedes-Benz automobile. This full-color production was totally awesome; I spent a lot of time trying to convince myself that reading the manual long before the car's official release was as envy-worthy as owning the car itself. (For many months my friends and family joked that I should paid in cars instead of dollars.) I've indexed the manuals to software applications before, but I have more memories from editing the user guide to a long-since-extinct universal remote control ... and I'm talking back when these things were large control panels. So what other cutting-edge production is taking place? I missed indexing the iPhone manual, but maybe someday I'll get to index the field guide for a nasty-looking military weapon.
Instructions to the 1040 Form
Indexing gets so little press, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to index something that's so popular or high-profile that I can't feel proud. I'll never be a household name, but if I had landed that one magical indexing project with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, my work might have reached every household. They really were looking for someone, at least for a little while. Even the newest Harry Potter book isn't as popular. Which reminds me: is someone out there indexing Rowland's books? If not, there ought to be. The Unauthorized Index of Harry Potter would be a big seller ... despite use of the word index in the title. Move over, back-of-the-book indexing. We're on the cover now.
Okay, I'm starting to drool.
But now, working in the wee hours of the night, I find myself fantasizing about the books that I really, really, really want to index, books that are just asking to be written so that I, Seth Maislin, can be assigned their indexes. So here's my wish list:
Chihuahuas for Dummies
Don't laugh. You probably have no idea just how far-reaching the Dummies series has become since its long-ago inception as a series for computer use. There's Fantasy Football for Dummies, a book about imaginary sports playing; Stretching for Dummies, a book about limbering up, perhaps in advance of reading Sex for Dummies; Guitar for Dummies, Bass Guitar for Dummies, and the upcoming Rock Guitar for Dummies, which I have to believe compete with each other somehow; and Jewish Cooking for Dummies, a book that, dare I say it, would make me feel guilty to own. Nevertheless, let me make myself clear here. Chihuahuas for Dummies is a real book. I want to index the next edition, you see, because I'm dying to see what changes.
10.9 Seconds: The Joey Chestnut Story
(see http://origin.mercurynews.com/valley/ci_6297731 to get the joke) Yes, this book is my own invention, but the fun part about indexing sports books is that they are so completely self-reverential. (Yes, reverential, not referential.) Written by sports geeks for sports geeks, the authors' language captures the awe-hubris-humor combination achieved by fans and record-breakers when it comes to the sport that is most of their life. It doesn't matter what the sport is, either, so I'm all for those esoteric things like Ultimate Frisbee (I was offered such a book once) and so on. I recently indexed the comprehensive Chasing the Hunter's Dream, a directory of hunting opportunities around the world. This book included both descriptions of "dream hunts" -- think lion hunts in Africa -- and an entire section in the back dedicated to recipes, including a few meals for squirrels -- I mean, of squirrels. And I mentioned First Position in my intro, where at times I felt like I was reading an artist's diary.
How to Work My Body: A Manual
There are a number of sex books out there -- including one for Dummies -- and most of them have indexes. I just finished indexing Him and Her, short and photograph-filled manuals of the sexes, along with instructions to make them work. And I do mean "work": the book about men attempts to explain why they tend not to do chores around the house. (Oh come on, you didn't think I'd use an erotic example of "work", did you? :-) These books, produced by the same group of people who made Sensual Crochet, were a joy of sex to index, especially once I realized that most of the anatomy-filled books that I index are about abnormal anatomy: prostate disorders (100 Questions and Answers About Prostate Diseases), gunshot wounds (Criminal Investigation, 2nd edition), and the like. And unlike the traditionally polite sex-instruction book, Him and Her are more about the art than the words -- something that, for eunuchs at least, would make the indexing go much faster.
The user manual to anything only cool people own
I had the honor of indexing the user manual to the Class E series Mercedes-Benz automobile. This full-color production was totally awesome; I spent a lot of time trying to convince myself that reading the manual long before the car's official release was as envy-worthy as owning the car itself. (For many months my friends and family joked that I should paid in cars instead of dollars.) I've indexed the manuals to software applications before, but I have more memories from editing the user guide to a long-since-extinct universal remote control ... and I'm talking back when these things were large control panels. So what other cutting-edge production is taking place? I missed indexing the iPhone manual, but maybe someday I'll get to index the field guide for a nasty-looking military weapon.
Instructions to the 1040 Form
Indexing gets so little press, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to index something that's so popular or high-profile that I can't feel proud. I'll never be a household name, but if I had landed that one magical indexing project with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, my work might have reached every household. They really were looking for someone, at least for a little while. Even the newest Harry Potter book isn't as popular. Which reminds me: is someone out there indexing Rowland's books? If not, there ought to be. The Unauthorized Index of Harry Potter would be a big seller ... despite use of the word index in the title. Move over, back-of-the-book indexing. We're on the cover now.
Okay, I'm starting to drool.
Labels: books, fun with indexing
27 June 2007
Technology that ignores indexing
It's true, I'm including a link to this video because, frankly, it made me laugh. Witness a satire of Microsoft Surface. Yes, it's funny, but I found myself thinking about how technologies are so often designed to create needs, not to meet existing needs. I mean, it's fascinating to imagine a table that has a computer screen as a surface, but what about building height adjusters into the legs so they don't wobble? And as I continued to think about this, I discovered I have two reasons to put this video in my blog.
First, there's the opening sequence in which someone is looking at digital photos and videos scattered across the tabletop. With his fingers, the Surface user can move them around, open then, and even video the videos. In other words, the engineers of this expensive table have managed to reproduce the worst part of photographs: the pile of undifferentiated images. If someone came to you and dumped a box of photographs on your table, would you be happy? Now, what if all those photographs were digital? This is technology that completely ignores indexing. Compared to tools like Picasa, which puts metadata to work, this product does its best to create an interface option where metadata is ignored. And if you're one of those "old-timers" who longs for the physical-contact nostalgia of long-ago days of printed photographs, such that you might think shuffling through a pile of photographs would be fun, think again. Remember, these are digital photographs. They have no width and no weight.
Second, there's the reality that in real life, we use table tops as horizontal storage surfaces. Whether you're a neat freak who has only a magazine or a coaster rack on top, or you're more like me and live with your tables essentially camouflaged by life's detritus, either way you've essentially buried your workspace. In other words, this tool seems to forget the environment in which we look things up. The voiceover in the ad jokes about the convenience of a handheld machine in comparison to this table, but I'd like to suggest that this table would make more sense as a vertical hang-on-the-wall flat-screen TV. Take a lesson from the many-years-old television industry: there is no market for a horizontal television.
First, there's the opening sequence in which someone is looking at digital photos and videos scattered across the tabletop. With his fingers, the Surface user can move them around, open then, and even video the videos. In other words, the engineers of this expensive table have managed to reproduce the worst part of photographs: the pile of undifferentiated images. If someone came to you and dumped a box of photographs on your table, would you be happy? Now, what if all those photographs were digital? This is technology that completely ignores indexing. Compared to tools like Picasa, which puts metadata to work, this product does its best to create an interface option where metadata is ignored. And if you're one of those "old-timers" who longs for the physical-contact nostalgia of long-ago days of printed photographs, such that you might think shuffling through a pile of photographs would be fun, think again. Remember, these are digital photographs. They have no width and no weight.
Second, there's the reality that in real life, we use table tops as horizontal storage surfaces. Whether you're a neat freak who has only a magazine or a coaster rack on top, or you're more like me and live with your tables essentially camouflaged by life's detritus, either way you've essentially buried your workspace. In other words, this tool seems to forget the environment in which we look things up. The voiceover in the ad jokes about the convenience of a handheld machine in comparison to this table, but I'd like to suggest that this table would make more sense as a vertical hang-on-the-wall flat-screen TV. Take a lesson from the many-years-old television industry: there is no market for a horizontal television.
Labels: fun with indexing, human factors
20 June 2007
Indexing has at least one fan
It seems my blog got noticed just the other day, which is pretty neat. It seems I have at least one fan ... other than myself, of course.
Why does the field of indexing have so few fans outside of the profession itself? I heard many stories from and about thankful authors who swear by the quality of the indexes written by professionals. My favorite is something like this: "Until I looked at that index, I didn't even know I wrote all that!" I'm talking about something more general.
No, we're not firefighters, bursting through burning walls to save people we've never met, but I like to think that we make the world a better place anyway. We're the traffic cops of information, tour guides for books, instructors and librarians, a taut rope in the rough seas of data storms....
If you know anything about indexing -- not indexes, but indexing -- then you know it's not a boring profession. Think about the public perception of lawyers, and how we don't consider that profession boring, and yet the reality of law is lots of books, lots of reading, lots of research. Those "exciting moments" brought to you on the television, along with the anxiety and intrigue of any moral or ethical battles regarding the implementation of law, represent only a small piece of the whole system. There is a lot of boredom in lawyering. No, the part of the law that brings so many students into the law schools (other than the potential for income, perhaps) is the idea that law governs our every-day lives, the sociological analogy to science.
Indexing is the process of analyzing and re-representing information, the lifeblood of everything we do. It's the Matrix; we hold the Da Vinci Code. We are responsible for getting data from one place to another in an efficient format, so that we can actually talk. Whenever you get frustrated by a failure to communicate, remember that an indexer can change that.
Maybe the reason indexing seems so boring is that the word is so inexorably tied to that alphabetized, indented thing you see in the back of books. Despite the applications indexing has for the Web, in search, and with taxonomy, people associate what we do with good old-fashioned paper. And gosh, they've been around, like, forever, so of course they're as boring as dirt -- note that dirt is not boring to some people -- and a whole lot less inspiring of nostalgia. Such a shame.
Maybe we need a movie, the way Top Gun got people signing up for the U.S. Air Force. Here's one. It's called Cross. Jack Hannah, Agency "prep consultant" who can find out anything about anyone, is double-crossed when a routine inside investigation of an agent turns out to have the exact same life Jack has. Part No Way Out and part Blow Up, Cross follows Jack on a dangerous journey into government archives to answer what should have been a simple question: Who is the real Jack Hannah?
Why does the field of indexing have so few fans outside of the profession itself? I heard many stories from and about thankful authors who swear by the quality of the indexes written by professionals. My favorite is something like this: "Until I looked at that index, I didn't even know I wrote all that!" I'm talking about something more general.
No, we're not firefighters, bursting through burning walls to save people we've never met, but I like to think that we make the world a better place anyway. We're the traffic cops of information, tour guides for books, instructors and librarians, a taut rope in the rough seas of data storms....
If you know anything about indexing -- not indexes, but indexing -- then you know it's not a boring profession. Think about the public perception of lawyers, and how we don't consider that profession boring, and yet the reality of law is lots of books, lots of reading, lots of research. Those "exciting moments" brought to you on the television, along with the anxiety and intrigue of any moral or ethical battles regarding the implementation of law, represent only a small piece of the whole system. There is a lot of boredom in lawyering. No, the part of the law that brings so many students into the law schools (other than the potential for income, perhaps) is the idea that law governs our every-day lives, the sociological analogy to science.
Indexing is the process of analyzing and re-representing information, the lifeblood of everything we do. It's the Matrix; we hold the Da Vinci Code. We are responsible for getting data from one place to another in an efficient format, so that we can actually talk. Whenever you get frustrated by a failure to communicate, remember that an indexer can change that.
Maybe the reason indexing seems so boring is that the word is so inexorably tied to that alphabetized, indented thing you see in the back of books. Despite the applications indexing has for the Web, in search, and with taxonomy, people associate what we do with good old-fashioned paper. And gosh, they've been around, like, forever, so of course they're as boring as dirt -- note that dirt is not boring to some people -- and a whole lot less inspiring of nostalgia. Such a shame.
Maybe we need a movie, the way Top Gun got people signing up for the U.S. Air Force. Here's one. It's called Cross. Jack Hannah, Agency "prep consultant" who can find out anything about anyone, is double-crossed when a routine inside investigation of an agent turns out to have the exact same life Jack has. Part No Way Out and part Blow Up, Cross follows Jack on a dangerous journey into government archives to answer what should have been a simple question: Who is the real Jack Hannah?
Labels: fun with indexing
09 January 2007
Constructing a mysterious index
[NOTE: Edited on 6-9-07 to fix missing indentations for index entries. -SM]
For years I have puzzled over the possibility of writing an index, to an imaginary book, in which a mystery is revealed and potentially solved. The book itself would not have to be a mystery, but there would have to be some kind of secret.
For example, suppose you had these entries:
La Traviata, clandestine meeting at, 145
Marters, Francine
meeting at La Traviata, 145
From these entries you would learn that Francine Marters met someone at La Traviata surreptitiously. An additional entry
Rapiere, Evan
accidental discovery of La Traviata matches, 166
implies not only that Evan was not the person at the restaurant, but also that Evan might have been the reason the secret was necessary. A final entry,
Pfiser, Victor
confronted by Evan Rapiere, 231
allows for the possibility that Victor was the other person with Francine (on page 145), such that Evan's discovery of the matches led to this confrontation.
What would make an index like this potentially interesting as a puzzle would be (a) the randomization of information, caused by the alphabetization of entries; (b) the summary-style labels in the index, which must naturally leave out much of the story; (c) the creativity of the labels, which can emphasize or omit interesting facts without destroying the quality of the index itself; and (d) the ability to tell many overlapping and long stories across just a few pages.
On the other hand, what makes an index puzzle challenging -- and the reason I've had no success so far -- is that the index must articulate all the facts; an index can have no secrets if it's going to work as a puzzle. For example, if this were a murder mystery, wouldn't the murder have to be indexed? If the index is going to be a good one (and that's a requirement for me, because otherwise it would seem too contrived), you'd have to have entries like these:
Rapiere, Evan
murder of, 235
Marters, Francine
guilty confession of, 469
Is there any way that a legitimate index could obfuscate information sufficiently enough to leave some mystery? In a way, an index must be too "honest" to allow for secrets.
The other problem, opposite to the honesty problem described above, is that if an index isn't specific enough, it's impossible to put the facts together in the first place. For example, if I changed the matches entry above to this:
Rapiere, Evan
accidental discovery of match book, 166
there's no way to connect this to La Traviata without help. Similarly, if I change the murder entry to simply this:
Rapiere, Evan, 235
or
Rapiere, Evan
surprised by an intruder, 235
then there is nothing in the index to clarify that Evan actually died.
I'm looking for ideas on how to get around these challenges. How much integrity can the index maintain without either giving too much away or leaving too many holes in the story?
For years I have puzzled over the possibility of writing an index, to an imaginary book, in which a mystery is revealed and potentially solved. The book itself would not have to be a mystery, but there would have to be some kind of secret.
For example, suppose you had these entries:
La Traviata, clandestine meeting at, 145
Marters, Francine
meeting at La Traviata, 145
From these entries you would learn that Francine Marters met someone at La Traviata surreptitiously. An additional entry
Rapiere, Evan
accidental discovery of La Traviata matches, 166
implies not only that Evan was not the person at the restaurant, but also that Evan might have been the reason the secret was necessary. A final entry,
Pfiser, Victor
confronted by Evan Rapiere, 231
allows for the possibility that Victor was the other person with Francine (on page 145), such that Evan's discovery of the matches led to this confrontation.
What would make an index like this potentially interesting as a puzzle would be (a) the randomization of information, caused by the alphabetization of entries; (b) the summary-style labels in the index, which must naturally leave out much of the story; (c) the creativity of the labels, which can emphasize or omit interesting facts without destroying the quality of the index itself; and (d) the ability to tell many overlapping and long stories across just a few pages.
On the other hand, what makes an index puzzle challenging -- and the reason I've had no success so far -- is that the index must articulate all the facts; an index can have no secrets if it's going to work as a puzzle. For example, if this were a murder mystery, wouldn't the murder have to be indexed? If the index is going to be a good one (and that's a requirement for me, because otherwise it would seem too contrived), you'd have to have entries like these:
Rapiere, Evan
murder of, 235
Marters, Francine
guilty confession of, 469
Is there any way that a legitimate index could obfuscate information sufficiently enough to leave some mystery? In a way, an index must be too "honest" to allow for secrets.
The other problem, opposite to the honesty problem described above, is that if an index isn't specific enough, it's impossible to put the facts together in the first place. For example, if I changed the matches entry above to this:
Rapiere, Evan
accidental discovery of match book, 166
there's no way to connect this to La Traviata without help. Similarly, if I change the murder entry to simply this:
Rapiere, Evan, 235
or
Rapiere, Evan
surprised by an intruder, 235
then there is nothing in the index to clarify that Evan actually died.
I'm looking for ideas on how to get around these challenges. How much integrity can the index maintain without either giving too much away or leaving too many holes in the story?
Labels: fun with indexing
