See also Pre-Conference Workshops and Post-Conference Workshops.

Registration: Online conference registration is now closed. The printed registration form (125kb PDF) is still available.

The preliminary program packet can be downloaded as a PDF file (4.6MB).

For program summary, view the program preview (42K PDF file).

8:30am–5:00pm
ASI Board Meeting

8:00am–5:30pm
Pre-Conference Workshops
(separate registration required)

3:00pm–6:45pm
Exhibits Open

3:00pm–7:00pm
Conference Registration

3:00pm–4:00pm
Poster presentations
Presenters will be available in the Exhibits area during this time to discuss their posters. Posters will remain on display in the Exhibits area through Saturday morning.

5:00pm–6:00pm
New Members / First Time Attendees Orientation
New ASI members and first-time attendees at an ASI conference are cordially invited to join ASI officers, Board members, and committee chairs for a general orientation to ASI’s programs and services.

6:00pm–7:00pm
Welcome Reception
(Included for those who have registered for the full conference. Workshop attendees or one-day registrants may purchase tickets for the reception. See the registration form to purchase tickets.)

7:00pm–9:00pm
Conference Dinner and Keynote Address
The Wild Wild Web: Staying Safe Online
Keynote Speaker: Jayne A Hitchcock
Learn the ins and outs of spam (not in a can!), those darned Nigerian phishes, identity theft, and much more! You'll get all the tips, resources, and know-how you need to stay safer online every day, liberating indexers from the dangers inherent in conducting business online. Book signing follows.

7:00am–5:00pm
Conference Registration

7:00am–8:00am
Continental Breakfast

8:00am–9:30am
Morning Breakout Sessions

Breakout Session 1: Indexing Children’s Books
Presenter: Barbara J. DeGennaro

Do you want to index children’s books but not sure how to get started? Indexing books for children has undeniable appeal and its own satisfactions, but how do you begin? In this session, you will be guided through the world of children’s books and the publishing industry. Discussion will focus on the various age groups and the impact of educational and instructional standards on these groups as well as how and where to locate the right publishers and market your services. If you find the idea of indexing books for children intriguing, then this session is for you.

Breakout Session 2: Client/Indexer Relations
Presenters: Richard S. Shrout and Ken Karpinsky

This interactive session will educate and enable indexers regarding continuing challenges when dealing with clients. Even though every client presents unique situations, all indexers can learn how to navigate due dates, budgets, output formats, styling requirements, and quirks to build solid long-lasting client relations. Some of the questions that will be addressed include determining fee structures; negotiating due dates; keeping existing clients; questions to ask before accepting an assignment; joining an indexing group; and can there be too much work?

Breakout Session 3: Matching Authorities and Presentation: Pre- and Post-Coordinate Indexing
Presenter: Patricia B. Carlson

Indexing term styles may be pre- or post-coordinate, but so may index presentations. Significant issues can arise when terms are mismatched to presentation, in both the print and online environments. This talk examines the choice of authority/terminology and the presentation of terms to enhance the usability of an index.

Breakout Session 4: How to Manage a Large Project: Or How I Indexed Over One Million Entries from 400 Unrelated Sources
Presenter: James L. Jackson

With any project, it’s good to have a plan.  With a large project, it is essential.  The scope of this session includes breaking the entire project into manageable tasks; identifying a coding system for multi-volume sources that will be merged into one master index; ongoing maintenance; measuring progress; how to successfully sort over a million records; and posting the results on a website.

9:30am–10:00am
Morning Refreshment Break

9:30am–7:00pm
Exhibits Open

Morning Breakout Sessions (continued)

10:00am–11:30am
Breakout Session 5: Designing a Web Site for Freelance Indexing Services
Presenter: Heather Hedden

All freelance indexers should have their own web sites. Whether you have yet to start a web site or already have one and want to improve it, this presentation will provide many useful tips. Topics will include: what information to have or not have on your web site, the organization of the pages, how to put sample indexes on your web site, graphical design issues, and web hosting and domain names. Examples of real indexer web sites will be examined. The focus of the presentation is more design, rather than the technicalities of HTML and web site creation.

Breakout Session 6: Use of Indexes in Social Networking Applications
Presenter: Ilana Kingsley

Social networking tools, such as blogs, wikis, bookmarking, and tagging have become mainstream Web applications. This presentation will give an overview of social networking tools that use indexes or index-like systems.

Breakout Session 7: The Business of Indexing
Presenter: Janet Perlman

A discussion of what you need to know to get your indexing business off the ground. Topics to be covered include training, work space needs and office set-up, equipment and supplies, time management, and record keeping. Money and tax issues, pricing, and marketing in the early stages of a business will also be discussed.

Breakout Session 8: Embedded Indexing
Presenter:Jan Wright

Embedded indexing doesn’t sound liberating, but it opens the door to setting your index free, to follow the content wherever that content may go. In this presentation, Jan will discuss the theory and practice of embedded indexing, demonstrate indexing into Word files, Frame files, and InDesign files, and cover some techniques and tools that aid in this process. The session will conclude with a short foray into XML structured files.

11:45am–1:30pm
Honors and Awards Luncheon
Presentation of the ASI-H.W. Wilson Award for Excellence in Indexing and the Hines Award for Service to ASI, along with other member recognition awards.

1:30pm–3:00pm
Afternoon Breakout Sessions

Breakout Session 9: Student Research Habits and the Future of Subject Indexing
Presenter: Mary L. Onorato

How do online database publishers investigate the research habits of students in post-secondary institutions, and what have they discovered? What might be the implications of these findings for the future of subject indexing? A product manager from Thomson Gale reviews the results of a recent market research project and discusses various ways these results can impact decisions about subject indexing.

Breakout Session 10: Rekeying or Re-indexing: Secrets for Doing It Fast
Presenter: Charlee Trantino

This hands-on session will teach participants how to rekey an index in the traditional manner used by major publishing houses. Rekeying means changing locators when a book's page numbers change due to print reflow or republication of the book in a different edition, (e.g., hardback to paperback). Then they will learn a Wilson Award winner's personal technique for rekeying or "re-indexing" an index file directly in Word, which can save hours of time. Participants will rekey a small section of an index. They will also learn how typesetters want new entries added or deleted in an index that is already typeset.

Breakout Session 11: PDFs in the Indexing Process
Moderator: Dick Evans. Panelists: Diana Witt, Janyne Ste. Marie, Kay Schlembach, Jan Wright

This panel discussion addresses the use of PDFs and associated tools in the indexing process. Topics include but are not limited to: indexing from PDFs; PDFs as searchable proofs; peripheral use of PDFs for invoices, document delivery, etc.; costs/benefits of PDFs vs paper proofs; tools and utilities (not version specific) such as Acrobat Reader versus the full version of Acrobat.

Breakout Session 12: Proofreading for Indexers
Presenter: Julie Matson

Julie will cover "The 10 Most Common Errors" found by proofreaders. She will present tips on what to look for and how to avoid these errors in your finished product.  Hands-on exercises with time for questions will round out the presentation.

3:00pm–3:30pm
Afternoon refreshment break

3:30pm–5:00pm
Afternoon Breakout Sessions (continued)

Breakout Session 13: Liberating the Index from Proprietary Formats: An XML Tagging Scheme for Describing Index Information
Presenter: David Ream

Where SGML describes content and HTML describes appearance, XML encompasses both of these desirable traits. An "open source" DTD (Document Type Definition) will be presented that describes index data for display, i.e., sections in a book or pages on a web site, for embedding purposes, and for data exchange, i.e., entry records to be passed between applications.

Breakout Session 14: The Virtual Office: Working Away from Home and on the Road
Moderator: Nan Badgett. Panelists: Connie Binder, Joy Dean Lee, Carolyn Weaver, Diana Witt

Indexing is one of the most flexible and portable professions. Self-employed indexers can work from virtually anywhere at any time. This panel presentation will explore the problems and solutions of creating a virtual office for mobile workstyles from working vacations to a completely mobile lifestyle. Topics discussed will include planning (Internet access, mail receipt, etc.), client interface, and mobile technology.

Breakout Session 15: Writing for ASI
Moderator: Enid Zafran. Panelists: Heather Hedden, Judith Reveal, Pilar Wyman

Find out how you can become a published author for ASI! ASI publications present lots of opportunities to write on what you know best – indexing, finding information, subject specialties, computer tools, etc. Hear what the past and present editors of Key Words have to say about the direction of this important newsletter. Learn what it takes to author a book from the author of our newest publication on Web Indexing.

5:00pm–6:00pm
Chapter Relations Meeting
Moderator: Diana Witt

This meeting is open to all who are interested in chapter-related issues. The agenda will include a discussion of the new chapter manual, ideas for programming at chapter meetings and support initiatives for new or struggling chapters.

5:30pm–7:00pm
Networking Reception
(Included for those who have registered for the full conference. Workshop attendees or one-day registrants may purchase tickets for the reception. Please see the registration form to purchase tickets.)

7:30am–2:00pm
Conference Registration

7:00am–8:00am
Continental Breakfast

8:00am–12:00noon
Exhibits Open

Plenary Sessions

8:00am–8:45am
Plenary Session 1: The Training in Indexing Course—What is it and How Does it Work?
Presenters: Janet Perlman, Sandi Frank, Frances Lennie, Kay Schlembach, Pilar Wyman

Everything you wanted to know about ASI's new Training in Indexing course but never had a chance to ask. The panel will discuss course development and course methodology and content, as well as current enrollment status and future plans.

8:45am–9:45am
Plenary Session 2: Easing the Pain of Embedded Indexing: How UID Indexing Has Succeeded at Microsoft Learning
Presenter: Patricia Masserman

Two years ago at the ASI Conference in Pasadena, CA, Microsoft Learning presented a new way and a new tool to provide embedded indexing. Patricia will share with you the updates and changes to the Tagging and Index Mapper (TIM) tool and how it works in the real world.

9:45am–10:00am
Break

10:00am–11:00am
Plenary Session 3: Adapting to Change; Sustaining Knowledge
Presenter: Jill O'Neill, Director of Planning & Communication, NFAIS

The information community is in transition. Just what our information tools, resources and practices will look like in another five years’ time is impossible to say. Technology gurus talk of networked books and digital content repositories. Scholarly publishing professionals seek out creators of online games in order to better understand the community in a virtual environment. Librarians question time-honored cataloging activities and become adept as programmers themselves. Internet search giants scan books from major research collections, promising that users will be able to retrieve whatever it is they seek. Some say current copyright practice is functioning well; others insist it is broken. Digital immigrants adapt while digital natives speed ahead. This competitive environment requires of content and technology providers that they reallocate resources and redesign products and services in order to better satisfy the information-seeking needs of a changing user population. Players, large and small, are seeking out those tools and technologies that provide a strategic advantage, even as they reformulate their ideas regarding the nature of content and its use. This talk will provide an overview of the current areas of volatility for the information community as a whole. Such an overview may help indexing professionals better understand the challenges faced by their clients and tailor their own strategic objectives for success.

11:00am–11:45am
ASI Business Meeting

12:00pm–1:45pm
Luncheon Celebrating ASI's 40th Anniversary

This anniversary celebration will honor ASI's founding members. Speakers include former ASI Presidents Alan Greengrass, Barbara Preschel, Dorothy Thomas, and Diana Witt, whose respective terms span the history of the Society from 1968 through the early 2000s, discussing the issues that shaped ASI during each decade.

2:00pm–5:00pm
Special Interest Group Meetings

2:00pm–6:00pm
Post-Conference Workshops
(separate registration required)

Post-Conference Tour

7:30pm–9:00pm
Ghost Tour of Philadelphia

Hear the chilling tales of America's most historic — and most haunted — city on this candlelight walking tour through Independence Park and Society Hill. Is Ben Franklin still roaming the streets of his "City of Brotherly Love"? Do the very souls of our forefathers still frequent Independence Hall? Does Benedict Arnold have unfinished business at the Powel House? Help us push aside the cobwebs and discover what lurks in the shadows of America's most historic city! This tour, sponsored by Information Today, Inc., is free to all conference registrants, but separate registration is required to confirm participation. Extra tickets may be purchased for guests.