Indexing see Change ANZSI Conference
Monday 12th to Wednesday 14th September 2011
Brighton Savoy, Brighton, Victoria
DRAFT Conference Program (August 2011)
Abstracts and speaker biographies
Sunday 11 September 2011
Arriving early and staying near or at the conference venue? Why not join us for dinner at a local restaurant? If interested meet in the foyer of the Brighton Savoy at 6:30 pm.
Monday 12 September 2011
| 8:30 | Registration | |
|
9:15 |
Welcome - Mary Russell (ANZSI President) |
|
|
9:30 |
Keynote speaker 1 - Susan Hawthorne, Spinifex Press, Publishing Change see Digital see Bibliodiversity |
|
| 10:30 | Morning tea | |
|
11:00
|
Indexing quilts Nikki Davis: Documenting historic quilts: Quilt indexes and Mary Russell: Indexing quilt patterns |
Thesaurus and taxonomy Anna Gifford: Shifting keys – how words matter in Matt Moore: You've Come Along Way, Baby |
| 12:30 | Lunch | |
|
1:30 |
Marketing, networking and the web workshop Glenda Browne and Mary Coe |
Atlas of Living Australia: Biodiversity history Elycia Wallis |
| 3:00 | Afternoon tea | |
|
3:30
|
Pro Bono work and volunteering Amanda Everton: Volunteering – a path to happiness |
Indexing school archives Judith Gibson: Yesterday, today and tomorrow – Valuing ‘Significance’ and ‘Stories’ in the Caulfield Grammar School Archives |
| 5.00 | Sessions finish | |
| 7:00 | Conference dinner (included in full registration) | |
Tuesday 13 September 2011
| 8:30 | Registration | |
|
9:00
|
Indexing political memoirs Alan Walker |
A Music Detective’s Notes from the Old Spuriosity Shop |
|
9:45
|
Languages - small group discussions French and German - Ann Philpott |
The visual appeal of indexes, further thoughts on Frances Lennie |
| 10:30 | Morning tea | |
|
11:00
|
Subject indexing - small group discussions 1 Legal material - Alan Walker |
|
|
11:45
|
Subject indexing - small group discussions 2 Gardening - Max McMaster
|
|
| 12:30 | Lunch | |
|
1:30 |
Preparing the index quote - workshop Max McMaster |
Indexing endnotes, footnotes and cited authors - workshop Mary Russell |
| 2:45 | Afternoon tea | |
|
3:30
|
Visit to Brighton Historical Society
|
Free time
|
| 5:00 | Session finishes | |
| 6:30 | Optional informal dinner at local restaurant at own expense. Meet in foyer at 6:30 | |
Wednesday 14 September 2011
| 8:30 | Registration | ||
| 8:45 | ANZSI Annual General Meeting | ||
|
9:30
|
Keynote Speaker 2 - Tim Sherratt: Every story has a beginning: Entering the web of data |
||
| 10:30 | Morning tea | ||
|
11:00
|
Indexer's Office Environment Max McMaster, Maureen MacGlashan, Ruth Pincoe and Pilar Wyman |
Thesaurus creation - workshop Mary Russell |
|
| 12:30 | Lunch | ||
|
1:30
|
Different indexing - small group discussions 2 Craft - Nikki Davis |
||
|
2:15
|
Different indexing - small group discussions 2 Local history journals - Jane Purton |
||
| 3:00 | Afternoon tea | ||
|
3:30
|
Emerging trends in publishing: Keeping up to speed Maureen MacGlashan |
||
|
4:15 |
Closure - Mary Russell |
||
| 4:30 | Conference concludes | ||
| 6:30 | Optional informal dinner at local restaurant at own expense. Meet in foyer at 6:30 | ||
Presenters' Abstracts and Biographical Notes
Glenda Browne & Mary Coe: Marketing, networking and the web for indexers
This practical workshop will explore the nature of marketing and networking for indexers, with a focus on social networking, but not forgetting the importance of face-to-face meetings. Short exercises and discussions will give you the chance to network right away. We’ll also look at the many ways that people find those crucial first jobs, and then expand on them to develop a stable client base.
Glenda Browne has been a freelance indexer since 1988. She is co-author of Website indexing and The indexing companion, and author of The indexing companion workbook: book indexing. Glenda is Vice-President of the NSW Branch of ANZSI. Glenda was awarded Highly Recommended in the ANZSI Medal for her index to The indexing companion. Details at www.webindexing.biz.
Mary Coe has indexed hundreds of books and journals in a wide variety of topics over the past 20 years. She also has experience with database indexing and controlled vocabularies, including work on the National Library of Medicine's Medline database. Mary is Secretary of the New South Wales Branch of ANZSI. She works from a home office on Sydney's Northern Beaches.
Madeleine Davis: Indexing biographies
This session will concentrate on the indexes to a couple of biographies - going through them in detail and focusing particularly on how to handle the various different types of people in the book:
- the main subject of the biog. (the 'meta-character') and how to break down their entry
- the lead supporting cast - the sort of people (husbands/wives/rivals etc) who are mentioned a lot and so also need breaking down in their own way
- walk on parts - minor characters and those who may crop up a lot but aren't very important etc
- and perhaps discuss the way the development of biography indexes can be very different in style to other types of indexes - the extent to which they form a 'narrative' and can often look almost like a precis of the book.
Madeleine Davis has 17 years’ experience as a back-of-book and loose leaf indexer, including indexing over a dozen biographies. She has, over the years, also ‘morphed’ into a Web surfer and classifier and a lecturer for online legal research. She is currently also co-general editor for Thomson Reuters’ Online Currents journal. Madeleine was awarded Highly Recommended in the ANZSI Medal for her index to the biography - Frank Lowy: pushing the limits (HarperCollins, 2000). Madeleine is currently a member of the ANZSI NSW Branch Committee.
Nikki Davis: Documenting historic quilts: Quilt indexes and registers of the world
In the decades following the great quilt revival of the 1960s, quilts have increasingly been recognised as important social documents that hold valuable information about the people that made them and the times in which they lived. Textiles and patterns in quilts provide clues about social and economic conditions, political and historical events, trends in art and design as well as developments in technology. The last twenty years have seen the establishment of national quilt indexes and registers in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, which undoubtedly have been spurred by an exponential growth in quilt scholarship. The value of these indexes to researchers is that thousands of quilts have been uniformly documented, creating records with several search points including quiltmaker, date, technique, pattern and colour. They are also widely accessible as complete records for the Australian and American indexes have been made available online.
Nikki Davis: Indexing cookbooks
While indexing a cookbook might appear to be easy, it is not uncommon for indexes to these books to fall rather short. The indexer has to manage recipe names, a multitude of ingredients as well as the increasingly common practice of incorporating family stories and other text into cookbooks.
Nikki Davis: Indexing craft objects
Indexers are well used to working with concepts on paper. During this discussion however, participants will look at three dimensional craft objects and consider how best to index the variety of materials, techniques and tools used to create them. Also to be considered are the decorative and functional purposes of craft objects as well as the cultures and communities that make them.
Nikki Davis is a Melbourne-based indexer who enjoys working on humanities and social science books. She is the current ANZSI Victorian Branch Secretary and writes a column, Indexing Indaba, for the ANZSI Newsletter. Nikki has had a long interest in textile arts, particularly decorative hand quilting, which she has discovered requires the same patience and attention to detail as that needed for indexing.
Nikki Davis and Max McMaster: Indexing art books
Surprisingly, many publishers believe that art books either do not need indexes or at best that they should be cursory. This view will be considered along with some of the challenges of this subject including: untitled artworks, artists with multiple names, forged artworks and graffiti.
Jane Dyer: So what happens in School Archives? Let’s look at Presbyterian Ladies College, Melbourne
The PLC Archive exists to retain and preserve the history of the education of women and the contribution that the PLC Community has made to raising the status of women within the Australian society. The Archive resources and enriches stories told in the PLC Heritage Centre Galleries, supports curriculum Prep - Year 12, the life of the College and researchers from within and beyond the PLC community. Recent curriculum projects include Women in War and research for the Dame Nellie Melba 150th Birthday Commemorations. The Archive has a current database of 12,000 catalogued (and possibly as many un-catalogued) items. Our collection continues to grow.
The PLC Archivist is employed 0.4 during the school term. The Archivist is supported by a cataloguer one day per fortnight, an accessions officer employed one day per week and a group of dedicated Old Collegian and current student volunteers. The PLC Heritage Centre Manager is also employed 0.4 during the school term. At times our staff and users may lack the patience, skill and the time to wade through separate lists and groupings of content and different indexing tools.
Jane Dyer. DipGenLib, DipEd, GradCertCulturalHeritage. Jane is a Librarian, Teacher and Archivist at Presbyterian Ladies College, Melbourne. Established in 1875, PLC is one of the oldest schools for girls still in existence in Australia. As member of the PLC community for 20 years a professional highlight was the opening of the PLC Archive and Heritage Centre in 2005 to commemorate the College's 130th Birthday.
Jane has also worked at the British Institute Archive and Library in Florence; Heide Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen and as a consultant Archivist for schools, local government and community groups. She has published several papers on Archives in the curriculum and is the current Convenor of the Australian Society of Archivists (Vic) School Special Interest Group.
Alan Eddy: Small group discussion on Manuals
Definition, scope, examples of effective and poor manuals, with discussion steered by members of the group. Some suggested topics: Do indexes to manuals win the booby-prize? Are too many instruction manuals mere 'literature for the stupid' ? How close to extinction are printed instruction manuals? Who writes user manuals? Remedial manuals by third parties. Do user manuals have some of the most unusable indexes? Alternatives to printed manuals.
Forester with Victorian State Forests Department 1949-1989; Research Officer, Victorian Forest Industries Training Board 1990-1993; editor and writer of reports and codes of practice for forests practices 1993-1995. Freelance copy editing and indexing 1997-
Amanda Everton: Volunteering – a path to happiness
In Australia, 34% of the adult population (5.4 million people) are actively engaged in volunteering. Studies show that people who volunteer experience an increase in their own feelings of health and wellbeing, as volunteering can be a great way of contributing to their communities, supporting a cause they are passionate about, making new friends and staying connected. This presentation will provide a snapshot of the current picture of volunteering in Australia – who does it and why, and will highlight some key issues for volunteers to consider when choosing a volunteer position.
Amanda Everton has been with Volunteering Australia for the past eight and a half years, and is the National Manager of Education, Policy and Research. Amanda has an in-depth knowledge of the volunteer sector in Australia and the challenges faced by organisations that involve volunteers. In her position, Amanda assesses emerging critical issues affecting the volunteer sector, and develops appropriate responses and advice for government and the volunteer sector. She is experienced in working with organisations to implement best practice standards in the management of volunteers. Amanda has a background in social work, a postgraduate degree in Australian Migration Law and Practice and a Certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment.
Judith Gibson: Yesterday, today and tomorrow – Valuing ‘Significance’ and ‘Stories’ in the Caulfield Grammar School Archives
The Archival Collection at Caulfield Grammar School holds many unique and irreplaceable records dating from the first school day of 25 April 1881. Within the collection are examples of records that form the ‘story’ of our school, providing evidence of our heritage and cultural identity. These stories deserve to be told but often require arrangement, description and interpretation before they can be utilised in the curriculum or provided to researchers. This paper will discuss the joys and challenges of being a school archivist and the importance of working with allied professionals to enhance collection usage.
Judith Gibson is founding Archivist at Caulfield Grammar School. Prior to this she worked at the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Melbourne as a Senior Records Officer and as Archivist, University of Queensland. Her qualifications include a Bachelor of Education (Art & Craft), with teaching experience in secondary schools, a Graduate Diploma in Archives & Records from Monash University and Graduate Certificate in Business Management, University of Queensland. Judith is on the Executive Committee of the Australian Society of Archivists (Vic) School Archives Special Interest Group. She is also a practising textile artist, whose interests in history, design and writing have proved instrumental in her current role.
Anna Gifford: Shifting keys – how words matter in 21st century discoverability
Controlled vocabularies and subject headings are familiar tools within the library and information sciences, but their value is also now well established within the context of online discoverability. This paper reviews how controlled languages are applied in electronic spaces, using examples ranging from thesauri to topic maps, with a bit of tagging on the side. Language is fast becoming the dominant discovery tool, and so getting it right is more important than ever for information professionals
Anna Gifford is Resource Centre Manager at the Australian Drug Foundation. Her work in this role involves managing a library for the alcohol and drug sector plus a drug information phone & email service, and extends into multiple information roles across the organisation. Previously she has worked as Information Architect for Victoria Online (VO), the entry portal for Victorian Government, where her work included developing VO’s information architecture plan and focusing on thesaurus and taxonomy construction. Her special expertise is in thesaurus and taxonomy development in both online and database environments. Anna developed and implemented the Victoria Online Thesaurus, a 5000+ term structured vocabulary used in both metadata and discovery, which won the Sir Rupert Hamer Records Management Award for Innovation & Excellence in Records Management - Inner Budget Agency in 2005. She has previously developed subject-specific thesauri as part of Curriculum Corporation's Schools Online Thesaurus Project, and edited the third edition of the Australian Thesaurus of Education Descriptors (ATED) (ACER Press, 2003). She is about to commence assisting in the development of ATED’s fourth edition. With a traditional library background, Anna has a deep understanding of information management and structures.
Dr Susan Hawthorne: Publishing Change see Digital see Bibliodiversity
The publishing industry is undergoing massive changes with the advent of digital publishing. Digital publishing arrives at a time of ecological crisis. I will explore how we can learn from ecology in dealing with these changes. We can create diverse culturally sustainable systems (bibliodiversity) or we can recreate monocultures. In a bibliodiverse system change is dynamic and balanced, while in a monoculture dominance is the key force. The question for publishing professionals is also about fear: fear of change. Do you need to be up with all the technology? Or can a conceptual approach be useful? I talk about my experience as an innovator and a non-technical person. What can eBooks do for you? What are the pitfalls? How can you envision what your eBooks will look like? How can you contribute to bibliodiversity?
Susan Hawthorne has worked in publishing for close to 25 years, beginning as an editor at Penguin and then in 1991 co-founding with Renate Klein, Spinifex Press. She is Adjunct Professor in the Writing Program at James Cook University and the Co-ordinator of the English Language Network of the International Alliance of Independent Publishers. In 2006, Spinifex Press began producing eBooks in multiple formats; a significant learning curve followed this decision! She is also a writer, author of six books of poetry, a novel and several non-fiction titles including Wild Politics (2002).
Lai Lam: Indexing Chinese
The session will start with a short history of the different transliteration systems used to romanise Chinese in the past, followed by a brief introduction of Pinyin, the most widely used system throughout the world today. Discussion will centre around problems indexers face when dealing with Chinese personal names, place names as well as other general terms. There will be suggestions on how to tackle those problems.
Born and raised in Hong Kong, I emigrated with my family to New Zealand in 2004. My background is in graphic design and marketing. I was also a freelance translator for many years after our daughter was born. I had studied and worked in Japan and hold a BA in Japanese as well as an MLIS from Victoria University of Wellington. From 2008 to 2009 I did a one-year project indexing the New Zealand Chinese Journal Database at the Auckland City Libraries. I am currently cataloguer at the University of Auckland Library.
Frances S. Lennie: The visual appeal of indexes, further thoughts on
While preparing our indexes – structuring, writing entries, checking page references etc. – we should also be mindful of how the index might ultimately be displayed and its ease of use for the reader. This presentation, which enhances one given in 2009 in Sydney, including additional material on right-justified references, will examine decisions that indexers can and cannot control. Although concentrating on the print medium, a brief look at electronic indexes will also be taken.
Frances began her indexing career while still living in the United Kingdom. On her move to the United States, she established her company, Indexing Research, to develop and market CINDEX™ indexing software, which sees the 25th anniversary of its public debut this September. Frances is a frequent speaker at indexing and library meetings in North America and overseas, and conducts indexing training courses as well as CINDEX workshops. She has served as a juror for the ASI/H. W. Wilson Award for excellence in indexing, was instrumental in establishing the American Society for Indexing (ASI) Training in Indexing distance learning course, and most recently has just concluded her second term as President of ASI.
Frances lives in Rochester, NY, with husband Peter, and they both greatly enjoy travelling to spend time with children and grandchildren who have made their homes in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Byron Bay, New South Wales.
Clive Luckman: Indexing for Genealogy and Family History
Indexing for Genealogy and Family History – Is there anything different about it? Use of IT and volunteers.
BA (Melb) in History and Political Science. Almost all working life was with Dept of Defence, in an intelligence area. After retiring in 1996 took up genealogy, joined The Genealogical Society of Victoria (GSV), was President for 8 years until 2008. Has overseen GSV IT and indexing programs for the past 10 years.
Maureen MacGlashan, Ruth Pincoe, Pilar Wyman and Max McMaster: Indexers’ Office Environment
For freelancers in particular, our entire working environment revolves around our home offices, yet quite often, little consideration is given to the placement of the desk and other furniture, to say nothing of how we set up our computer, monitor, lighting and other essential equipment like scanners and copiers. What of the ambience of the office: does background music, a pleasant view through the window, photographs around the walls, or the presence of a pet improve productivity? Four international panellists discuss their office arrangements, revealing through images the physical layout of their offices, as well as explaining what works for them.
Maureen MacGlashan: Emerging trends in publishing: keeping up to speed
Hot-foot from the SI Conference in Keele where ‘emerging trends’ was on the agenda, Maureen MacGlashan reports on what is being done in the indexing world not just to keep indexers up to speed with new publishing practices but also, even more crucially, to influence those practices.
Maureen MacGlashan spent the first forty years or so of her working life in the British Diplomatic Service. A sabbatical along the way took her into the academic and publishing world and, eventually, indexing. She has always had a particular interest in ways of enhancing the indexer—client partnership and exploring new techniques for producing what the client wants if only they knew it could be done. She was president of the British Society of Indexers from 2002-5, and has been editor of The Indexer, since 2004.
Max McMaster: Preparing the indexing quote
Preparing an indexing quote for an editor or publisher is one of the most difficult and, for some indexers, the most frightening part of freelancing. You don’t want to overquote, because you might not get the job, but you don’t want to underquote either, as you do need to make a living. This workshop will consider the three quoting methods – per page rate, per locator rate and hourly rate, and compares them using a practical indexing example, to determine which method is best.
Max McMaster: Gardening
Gardening books pose many difficulties for the indexer. How do you deal with botanical names, common names (do you use direct entry or inverted forms) ? and what about hybrids, cultivars and varieties? Come along to this small group discussion – pick up some useful tips, as well as contributing to the session.
Max McMaster: Children’s books
Indexes in children’s non-fiction books tend to be either poorly done or non-existent, yet providing children with good indexes is just as important as for an adult. Come along and explore the fascinating field of children’s indexing. Issues to consider cover dealing with specific age groups, appropriate level of terminology, dealing with illustrations, and depth of indexing. We may even do some practical children’s indexing!
Max McMaster has been a full-time freelance indexer for the past 19 years working across a range of subjects with emphasis on the sciences, but covering environment, business, social sciences and general trade titles as well. He has in excess of 1800 indexes to his name. Max lectures on indexing to editing and publishing students at a number of Australian universities and is an instructor for the University of California, Berkeley Extension indexing course. He also runs indexing training courses for ANZSI and other organisations throughout Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. Max has been awarded the AusSI Medal (now ANZSI Medal) for book indexing on three occasions. He is a Life Member of ANZSI, and is currently a member of ANZSI Council.
Matt Moore: You've Come Along Way, Baby
In the last 15 years, we have moved from a world of information scarcity to information saturation. Taxonomy work should play a key role in the effective management of this new world – but is it? Based on the 2010 Australian Taxonomy Skill and Use Survey and his own experiences talking about taxonomies with some of Australia's largest organisations, Matt will discuss:
- Who is working with taxonomies in Australia and what are they doing?
- Do organisations value taxonomies?
- How do user-generated folksonomies play with traditional thesauri?
- Can we leave information organisation solely to machines?
Matt Moore is a director of Innotecture, an occasional lecturer at University of Technology Sydney and chair of the New South Wales Knowledge Management Forum. He has spent over a decade working in knowledge and information management, learning and development and internal communications with organisations such as PwC, IBM, Oracle and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission.
Ann M Philpott: Indexing French and German
This session is for indexers who work in English but who come across French or German names or terms and wonder how to index them. We shall look at the treatment of names with prefixes—an article, a preposition, or a combination of both, and names with suffixes indicating one’s gender; the use of online and hard-copy dictionaries; and the issues of cross-referencing and translation of terms. Participants are welcome to bring along their own questions and are encouraged to contribute to the session.
Ann M Philpott: Indexing Religion
This session is for indexers who work mainly with secular texts but who come across biblical scripture (Catholic and Protestant), names and titles of people in Christian denominations, and Christian terminology and wonder how to index them. Participants are welcome to bring along their own questions and are encouraged to contribute to the session.
Ann M Philpott has worked in her own business of indexing, editing, writing, teaching and training since late 1994. She has studied English, German and French in her Arts (with Honours) degree from the University of Melbourne; scripture, theology, church history, religious education and pastoral studies in her Bachelor of Theology degree from the ecumenical United Faculty of Theology at the Melbourne College of Divinity; and editing, fiction and non-fiction writing, and scriptwriting in her Graduate Diploma in Professional Writing from Deakin University. She has a Graduate Diploma in Education, a Bachelor of Commerce as well as a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment.
Ann has taught English, French, German, religion and society, church history, and religious education in state, Catholic and independent schools. She has worked in the following sectors: youth, environment, arts, media, journalism, trade and educational publishing, and education. She is a registered indexer and corporate trainer, and will add lecturing in editing at Swinburne University of Technology (Prahran campus) to her portfolio of activities from 2012.
Ann has served as a newsletter editor, treasurer and president for the Australian Society of Indexers (AusSI), now known as ANZSI. She is currently serving as the training officer for the Society of Editors, Victoria.
Ruth Pincoe: A Music Detective’s Notes from the Old Spuriosity Shop
This presentation will describe the process of documentation required for repertoire lists for music examinations and for graded pedagogical music publications. It will include basic research skills, rules for working with titles of musical compositions, research sources and techniques, and an indexing software application for working with graded repertoire lists.
Ruth Pincoe: Indexing music
The focus of the session will be around music titles (style, alphabetization, etc.). Music titles are really complicated, because what you do with them depends so much on the genre and on the period. It will be dealing totally with what we call "classical" music, although it will include some traditional and folk music issues. Ruth has no reliable background in pop music, and will leave that to other experts!
Ruth Pincoe holds a master’s degree in musicology from the University of Toronto. Her varied career has included musical activities, stage management, library work, and archival arrangement and description. She has been a freelance editor, indexer, and researcher since 1982, and has years of experience in trade, educational, and scholarly publishing.
Dr Fiona Swee-Lin Price: Indexing Asian names
Indexing names which do not follow the standard given names + surname format found in Anglo-Saxon names can be challenging. This session will explore some of the issues indexers are likely to encounter when working with names from Asian countries, including how names are structured in different countries, how they may be Westernised, and some of the ways these names may be listed. After the talk there will be a roundtable discussion where delegates will have the opportunity to raise questions.
Fiona has a Malaysian Chinese mother and an Anglo-Australian father. She has been working with international students since 1991, and completed a PhD in cross-cultural psychology in 2000. In 2001, after developing the highly popular training program “Working with Asian Names”, she set up her own consultancy specialising in cultural diversity management, and has since worked for a wide range of clients, including the Australian Crime Commission, International House New York City and 18 Australian universities. Her book ‘Success with Asian Names’ was published by Allen & Unwin in 2007.
Jane Purton: Volunteering at the Ballaarat Mechanics' Institute.
This paper looks at the history and the role of mechanics’ institutes, and the BMI in particular. Were they involved with Shakespeare’s rude mechanicals? The BMI has been operating for 152 years and until 1985 was an important cultural institution in Ballarat. However, during the 1980s the building was in poor repair and the only service provided was the subscription library. Where do the volunteers come in? Fortunately, the 1980s saw a surge in the sentimental and economic value of heritage and resulting government grants, followed by the trend to early retirement. This created a growing pool of people with the time, interest and skills to devote to volunteering and it was from this group that the impetus for restoration of the BMI came.
Jane Purton: Local history journals
What are the special features of local history journals and how do these affect the approach to the index? Points to discuss also include the training of the usually volunteer indexers, software selection and role of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria.
Jane is a retired academic librarian and a freelance indexer who indexes books from the humanities and social sciences. She is also a volunteer worker at the Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute, working with an early local newspaper from 1872. Jane is the president of ANZI’s Victorian branch.
Mary Russell: Indexing quilt patterns
Patchwork quilts are often made using geometric patterns. This session will examine how you can index geometric patterns based on how they are constructed.
Mary Russell: Indexing endnotes, footnotes and cited authors
Endnotes, footnotes and cited authors appear in academic books. This session will examine when do you index them and what, if any, notation style do you use? Please bring any questions you may have.
Mary Russell: Indexing your family history
A family history can be like a mix of biographies and local history. This session will examine some of the tips and traps in indexing family histories. Please bring any questions you may have.
Mary Russell: Thesaurus creation workshop
You have heard of thesauri, but what are they and how are they constructed? This practical session will help you understand the basics.
Mary Russell: Indexing annual reports
Indexing an annual report for the first time can seem daunting, but they tend to follow a specific structure. This session will examine the tips and hints to indexing annual reports. Please bring any questions you may have.
Mary Russell is a freelance indexer. While she enjoys indexing predominantly science and medical works, she occasionally branches out to index/catalogue a private collection of objects, such as bookplates, or to prepare a descriptive bibliography of perhaps an author’s complete work, or a collection of old books. She is the President of ANZSI.
Tim Sherratt: Every story has a beginning: Entering the web of data
Discovery is more than entering keywords in a search box. The success of Google encourages us to think that data is data -- that it is the power of our search algorithms that matters, not the quality of our metadata. But this is changing. In recent years interest has shifted back towards familiar concepts of structure, meaning and context.
New forms of data visualisation help us interpret structures and find connections. Maps are everywhere, inviting us to move beyond the online realm and explore relationships in physical space. The linked data movement highlights the value of seemingly unfashionable practices like authority control and vocabulary construction.
Dr Tim Sherratt is a digital historian, web developer and cultural data hacker who's been developing online resources relating to archives, museums and history since 1993. He has written on weather, progress and the atomic age, and developed resources including Bright Sparcs, Mapping our Anzacs and The History Wall. Tim is currently working as a freelance troublemaker, as well as being an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Digital Design and Media Arts Research Cluster at the University of Canberra. He is one of the organisers of THATCamp Canberra and is a member of the interim committee of the new Australian Association for the Digital Humanities. He answers to @wragge on Twitter.
Alan Walker: Indexing political memoirs
Late in 2010, the former political leaders of three countries published their memoirs: Tony Blair (UK), George W. Bush (USA) and John Howard (Australia). The index to the Blair autobiography, in particular, became a hot topic on indexers’ discussion lists, raising questions about differences between British and North American editions, and about indexer neutrality. The author of this article, who indexed the Howard autobiography, will discuss the process of indexing politicians’ memoirs, and will compare the way in which these published indexes cope with various technical challenges, such as indexing the subject of a biography and managing strings of undifferentiated locators.
Alan Walker: Indexing legal material
Alan Walker will lead discussion on the special requirements of subject indexing for legal materials, including books, periodicals, looseleaf and online services. Discussion will also cover the compilation of Tables of Cases and Tables of Statutes, and other topics of interest to legal indexers.
Alan Walker has been a professional indexer for 29 years, after a 20-year career as a librarian. He is a Life Member of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers, of which he was President for four years. He has twice been awarded the Medal of the Society for an outstanding index. Over a number of years he has taught both basic and specialist courses on indexing, including indexing legal materials. Indexing biographical texts is one of his special interests.
Dr Elycia Wallis: Biodiversity history
The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) is a national project that is building an information platform to support scientists in their work to understand Australia’s biodiversity. It is funded by the Australian Government through the Super Science Initiative and the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. The ALA has many components, and work on each is distributed around the country through partnerships with museums, herbaria, CSIRO and universities. Museum Victoria is acting as the lead agency for the Biodiversity Heritage Library, Australian node, which is the digital literature service for the ALA.
Biodiversity informatics, and particularly taxonomy, is a branch of science that relies heavily on published literature. Furthermore, historic literature is just as important as recent publications. In taxonomy, it does not matter how long ago a species name was published, the original description must still be consulted in order to make a case for electing other new species.
The Biodiversity Heritage Library seeks to provide access to digitised versions of historic and, where possible, more recently published literature. Originally started as a consortium of 12 US and UK museums and herbaria, it has now grown to a global partnership with members in Europe, China, Brazil, Egypt and Australia. In this talk, the Atlas of Living Australia and the Biodiversity Heritage Library will be described. The Australian activities of the BHL will be outlined, and some topical issues relating to open access, e-publishing and public domain will be covered.
Dr Elycia Wallis works at Museum Victoria as the Manager of Online Collections. In this role she coordinates and project manages the design and development of websites that showcase the Museum’s 16 million collection objects, across the disciplines of History and Technology, Sciences and Indigenous Cultures. Elycia also coordinates publishing museum data and information to external websites through collaborations such as the National Library of Australia’s Trove project and the Atlas of Living Australia. Elycia was originally trained as a scientist and holds a PhD in Zoology. Since moving into the area of informatics she has also gained a Masters degree in Knowledge Management. Elycia is also the Team Lead for the Biodiversity Heritage Library in Australia, the digital literature component of the Atlas of Living Australia.
Pilar Wyman: Indexing Islamic names and terms
In addition to names and terms, we will also talk about fonts for diacritics, Unicode fonts, transliterated Arabic (and all the lovely inconsistencies -- have you noticed the many versions of Qaddhafi's name that were in the news not too long ago, for example?), resources, etc.
Pilar Wyman, Chief Indexer, Wyman Indexing (http://www.wymanindexing.com), has been involved in indexing since late 1983, and has been writing indexes as a successful freelancer since 1990, and as of mid 2011, has written indexes for over 1,000 titles in a variety of media.
While Pilar usually writes indexes for English, French, and Spanish-language materials, her second language is Arabic so she has few qualms about working with Arabic languages, as well. Her areas of expertise typically include medical, health, and technical subject areas, as well as other areas of personal interest. She is the American Society for Indexing (ASI)’s permanent International Representative, provides training and consulting around the world, presents regularly, and has published numerous articles on indexing. She is also currently serving ASI as their President-Elect. Join her online: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ or all of the above.
