Speaker Biographies

Harry Bego is an independent language engineer and software developer. He holds an MA in psychology from Nijmegen University and worked as a researcher at the Center for Knowledge Engineering at the Utrecht Academy of Arts from 1988 to 1989, and at the Institute for Language Engineering and Artificial Intelligence at Tilburg University from 1989 to 1995. TExtract was initially developed in 1991, attracted immediate attention from the publishing industry, and has been under continued development since.

 

Seminar 20: Back of Book Indexing with TexTract April 21, 2012 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM

 

Noeline BridgeNoeline BridgeNoeline Bridge, a former library cataloger, became fascinated by names, which continued in her indexing career. She has made presentations and published book chapters on their treatment. Her book on the subject will be published by ASI/ITI in 2012, and launched at this conference.

 

Seminar 7: The Glory and the Nothing of a Name April 20, 2012 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM

 

Sylvia CoatesSylvia CoatesSylvia Coates has been indexing since 1989 and has taught indexing since 1999. In 2004 she developed, and continues to teach, the award-winning UC Berkeley Extension Indexing: Theory and Application course. She is also the author of several articles on the practice of indexing. Sylvia lives with her husband in the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

 

Seminar 21: Measuring Value: Getting Paid Your Worth - and Being Worth Your Pay April 21, 2012 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM

 

Heather EbbsHeather EbbsHeather Ebbs, a freelance indexer, editor, and writer for 30 years, has written hundreds of indexes in a broad range of subjects and styles. She is an instructor for the University of California at Berkeley online extension course Indexing: Theory and Application. Heather is a Past President of ISC/SCI and a past president of the Editors' Association of Canada (and a past president of her local curling club, but that's another story).

 

Seminar 8: Ethics in Indexing April 20, 2012 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM

Digital Trends Task Force:
Mary Harper, Access Points Indexing, has been indexing since 2004.
David Ream is Leverage Technologies’ chief consultant for publishers.
Jan Wright has specialized in embedded indexing since the start of her career in 1991.

Seminar 1: Update on eBooks April 20, 2012 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM

Judi Gibbs has been a librarian, studio potter, medical and technical writer, and indexer. Her work as a writer often included usability testing of documentation. Her indexes reflect her usability experience and her experience as a reference librarian in university settings and special libraries. She currently volunteers as the librarian for the Danny Schneller Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to providing medical updating of healthcare professionals caring for developmentally disabled clients. She is also an active member of ASI.

Seminar 19: What Constitutes a Passing Mention April 21, 2012 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM

 

Bonnie HanksBonnie HanksBonnie Hanks is the sole proprietor of Hanks Indexing, established in 2006. She indexes trade and scholarly books, mostly in the humanities. Bonnie has an AB in English from Duke University, an MS in Information Sciences (Library) from the University of Tennessee, and is also a Registered Nurse. Bonnie currently serves on the ASI Board of Directors and is active in the Mid- and South-Atlantic Chapter of ASI. Prior to indexing Bonnie was library director at Tandem Friends School in Charlottesville. Bonnie lives on a farm in Virginia and enjoys foxhunting.

 

 

Seminar 5: Choices in Indexing Main Characters April 20, 2012 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM

Mary Harper, Access Points Indexing, has been indexing since 2004.

Seminar 1: Update on eBooks April 20, 2012 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM

 

Lucie HaskinsLucie HaskinsLucie Haskins has been a freelance indexer since 2000. She enjoys her 30-second commute immensely, especially after a long career in the computer industry and extensive travel as a management consultant. She is an ASI Webmaster team member and past chairperson of the Rocky Mountain Area chapter.

 

WS02: Indexing InDesign April 19, 2012 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Seminar 14: DEXembed, WordEmbed, and IndexDeconstructor: ... April 21, 2012 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM

 

Heather HeddenHeather HeddenHeather Hedden is a taxonomy consultant with Project Performance Corporation. She also teaches online continuing education workshops in taxonomy creation through Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Heather previously worked as a taxonomist at First Wind, Viziant Corporation, Earley & Associates, and Gale and has done freelance book indexing in between full-time jobs.

Heather is the founder and past manager of the Taxonomies & Controlled Vocabularies SIG of ASI, a past manager of the Web Indexing SIG of ASI, and past president of the New England Chapter of ASI. She is the author of The Accidental Taxonomist (Information Today, Inc.) and ASI books Indexing Specialties: Web Sites, a chapter in Index It Right: Advice from the Experts, Volume 2, and a chapter in the forthcoming book, Indexing Names.

 

WS01: Taxonomy and Thesaurus Creation April 19, 2012 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM

 

Lam Lai HeungLam Lai HeungLam Lai Heung, born and raised in Hong Kong, Lai moved to New Zealand when her family immigrated to Auckland in 2004. With a background in graphic design and marketing, Lai had worked for Hasbro's Asia-Pacific headquarter office for 8 years prior to becoming a freelance translator and a stay-at-home mom. Lai has studied and worked in Japan and holds a BA in Japanese as well as an MLIS from New Zealand. Her interest in the Korean language stems from watching the well-known drama series "Jewel in the Palace" which led her to start learning the Hangul alphabets. Lai came to indexing in 2008 when the Auckland City Libraries offered her a one-year contract to index the New Zealand Chinese Journal Database. She currently works at the University of Auckland Library cataloging both English and Chinese resources.

 

 

Seminar 16: Understanding Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Personal Names April 21, 2012 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM

 

Stephen IngleStephen IngleSteve Ingle is the president and CEO of WordCo Indexing Services, located in Norwich, Connecticut. He created his first index (8 lines) at the age of 10. He went on to study German literature at Yale University, and earn master's degrees in German and Russian Area Studies. Steve worked for four years as index editor for Germanic and Scandinavian literatures at the Modern Language Association (MLA) in New York. He began his indexing business out of his home in 1988. WordCo now employs ten people and completes about 500 projects annually for a diverse group of clients. His interests include indexing as a business and the transition to digital publishing.

 

Seminar 15: Trends in Digital Publishing April 21, 2012 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM
Seminar 17: Don't Just Break the Ice, Melt It!: Working the Client Front April 21, 2012 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM

 

Cheryl LandesCheryl LandesCheryl Landes, an award-winning technical writer, is the owner of Tabby Cat Communications in Seattle. She has more than 19 years of experience as an indexer and a technical writer in several industries: computer software, marine transportation, manufacturing, and the trade press.

She is the Program Committee Coordinator of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the American Society for Indexing (PNW/ASI), a member of ASI's national Board of Directors, and is an active member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC) on the chapter and international levels. She speaks frequently at ASI and STC meetings throughout the United States and Canada. She has also been awarded as one of the STC Fellows.

 

Seminar 19: What Constitutes a Passing Mention April 21, 2012 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM

 

Frances LennieFrances LennieFrances S. Lennie became a freelance indexer in 1977, after a period of teaching at both the secondary and tertiary educational level in the United Kingdom. She established her U.S. company, Indexing Research, in 1986 to develop and market CINDEX™ indexing software. She served on the ASI Board as Treasurer 1992-1998, was President 2003-2004 and 2010-2011, has been a juror for the ASI/W. H. Wilson Award, received the Theodore C. Hines Award in 2005 and is a founding member of the Western New York chapter of ASI. Frances is a frequent speaker at indexing meetings both at home and abroad, has contributed to several ASI publications, conducted semester-long indexing training courses for New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies 2000-2006.

 

Opening Address: Indexing as Art: Impressionism vs. Precisionism April 20, 2012 8:00 AM to 8:45 AM
Seminar 4: CINDEX: Past, Present, and Future April 20, 2012 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM


 

John MageeJohn MageeJohn Magee is the Manager of Indexing and Metadata Tagging for Cengage Learning. In more than 15 years with the company he has served in a variety of indexing and vocabulary management roles. In his non-indexing hours he writes haiku about his beagle, the (almost) world-famous Katie the Beagle.

 

Seminar 3: Publisher's Roundtable April 20, 2012 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM

Kate Mertes is sole proprietor of Mertes Editorial Services, providing indexing, information retrieval, and editorial expertise for complex, challenging projects in law and the humanities. Kate took her BA in medieval studies, a PhD in medieval history, and a post-doctoral degree in theology, and after teaching at university level for several years moved into publishing with a stint at Oxford English Dictionaries. After nine years as a managing editor of indexing with Research Institute of America, a legal publishing company, Kate started her own business in 1998. She has lived in Alexandria, VA, since 1992.

Seminar 11: Indexing Standards April 20, 2012 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM

Peter Meyers writes about and helps companies create reader-friendly digital books. He's the author of "Best iPad Apps" (O'Reilly, 2010) and the forthcoming "Breaking the Page: Transforming Books and the Reading Experience"(O'Reilly, 2011). Peter blogs at www.newkindofbook.com and can be found on Twitter @petermeyers.

 

 

Seminar 10: eBooks and Indexes April 20, 2012 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM

 

Janet PerlmanJanet PerlmanJanet Perlman has more than 25 years of experience in indexing with dual specialties - providing indexes for science-based and engineering textbooks and materials, and also indexing Spanish-language materials. Janet has served ASI in many capacities over the years on the Board of Directors, on national committees, and as one of the founders and long-time officer of the Arizona chapter. She is most proud of serving on the judging panel for the H.W. Wilson Award for Excellence in Indexing in 2003 and chairing the judging process in 2004. Janet served as the first Course Administrator for ASI's Training in Indexing instructional course from 2006 to 2008, and is currently Treasurer of ASI. Janet has presented many indexing workshops and is also an author. Besides articles forKeyWords and The Indexer, she edited Running An Indexing Business (ITI, 2002) and Index it Right, Vol. 2 (ITI, 2009, with Enid Zafran). Negotiations are underway for additional indexing books.

 

 

Seminar 2: Choosing Indexing Projects - To Take or Not To Take April 20, 2012 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM

David K. Ream is Leverage Technologies' chief consultant for publishers. He has a BS in Engineering and an MS in Computer Science from Case Western Reserve University. Mr. Ream has spent over 30 years working with publishers in the areas of typesetting design and production, database creation, editorial systems, and electronic publication design and production.

One of Mr. Ream's earliest assignments (in the mid-seventies) involved creating custom programs to sort legal indexes into locator order and then back into alpha order. Since then he has worked on many indexing, abstracting, and thesaurus projects and systems. Currently, indexing projects center around integrating Indexing Research's Cindex into corporate and governmental publishing operations including web applications. LevTech also performs computer consulting and programming for editorial applications as well as batch composition services.

 

Seminar 1: Update on eBooks April 20, 2012 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM

Since 2005, Chip Reese has indexed numerous books on Middle East conflict, al Qaeda, domestic terrorism, and global jihad. He's not sure if his numerous Internet searches on the subject have landed him on any watch lists.

 

Seminar 18: Contracting Formalities and Informalities April 21, 2012 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM

 

Kamm SchreinerKamm SchreinerKamm Schreiner is the owner of SKY Software and programmer of SKY Index Professional. He has a B.S. in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech with a minor in mathematics. He has been writing indexing software for more than 30 years and finds creating easy to use software interfaces the most enjoyable part of programming. He is an amateur songwriter when he isn't programming.

 

Seminar 13: SKY Index Professional: What's New and Why it Matters to You April 21, 2012 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM

 

Galen SchroederGalen SchroederGalen Schroeder completed the USDA course in 2001 and has been a member of ASI since 2002. He is active in the Twin Cities Chapter and served as chair for 2 years. He attends the annual meeting regularly and has been a panel member and a co-presenter at two annual meetings. Currently, he has created about 300 published indexes for books ranging from children's books, to trade books, to textbooks, to scholarly and scientific books. Prior to coming to indexing and ASI he was involved in a number of professional societies as board member, elected officer, committee chair, session moderator, and presenter. Those societies had extensive award opportunities for peer recognition that were instrumental in increasing and/or improving member morale, membership retention, and media exposure both locally (for the member) and nationally.

 

Seminar 9: Peer Recognition Awards April 20, 2012 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM

 

Ronnie SeagrenRonnie SeagrenRonnie Seagren is an advisory technical editor with IBM technical documentation, currently working on Rational products. She has also edited books and periodicals. Her main interest is in the 'findability' of information, especially how various forms of navigation work together online. In 2002 she was asked to apply her indexing experience to improving a master index made up of indexes for 50+ manuals for database products. At that point it was clear that search did not answer all retrievability needs. Since then she has been working on an approach that makes the most of indexing.

 

 

Seminar 6: Indexing, metadata,and search: ... April 20, 2012 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM

 

Maria SullivanMaria SullivanMaria A. Sullivan has a library background and has been an indexer since 1988, first in-house with a legal publishing company and then as a freelancer. Since 1994 she has been providing technical support and training in CINDEXT for Windows on behalf of Indexing Research.

 

Seminar 4: CINDEX: Past, Present, and Future April 20, 2012 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM
Seminar 22: Dear CINDEX... April 21, 2012 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM

 

Paul SweumPaul SweumPaul R. Sweum, the owner of Top Hat Word & Index out of the Seattle area, provides approximately 20 years of professional technical communications and writing experience - part of which involves a career as an urban planning professional. His subject specialties for indexing books and technical documents include geography, green industries, and travel, to name a few. Paul is also found on Twitter as "TopHatIndexer"...or traveling abroad with his fishing rod...or at a local ballpark.

 

 

Seminar 17: Don't Just Break the Ice, Melt It!: Working the Client Front April 21, 2012 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM

Charlee Trantino, winner of the 2006 Wilson Award, has been a full-time professional indexer since 1990. Charlee has a BA in English from Drew University; a Masters in English from Rutgers University, and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for postgraduate study in English Literature at Princeton University where she focused on Shakespeare's pastoral romances. She is the author (writing as Savannah Russe) of the bestselling Darkwing Chronicles series for Signet Paperbacks and a genre romance, Careful What You Wish For (writing as Lucy Finn). Charlee is also a Certified Personal Property Appraiser and runs an antique store, the Big Red Barn in Beaumont, during the summer months.

 

Seminar 1: Update on eBooks April 20, 2012 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM

 

Madge   WallsMadge   WallsMadge Walls has been indexing full time since 2006, after a long career in real estate. She truly knows what it means to begin an indexing career with no related professional background. She does a wide variety of books from cookbooks to biography, social sciences to health & wellness, travel to literary studies, and more. She is also an award-winning novelist, and lives in Oregon.

 

 

WS03: Getting Started in Indexing April 19, 2012 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM

 

Carolyn WeaverCarolyn WeaverCarolyn Weaver is Chair of the ASI Training Course Committee and the 2013 Wilson Award Committee, and is a former President of ASI (2007-2008). A retired medical librarian, she has been indexing since 1991.

 

Seminar 23: Coming Soon - The ASI Training Course Version 2.0 April 21, 2012 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM

 

Barbara WintroubBarbara WintroubBarbara Wintroub graduated California State University, Northridge, with a degree in Kinesiology. She has a lifetime State of California Teaching Credential, is currently a Faculty Member with UCLA Extension-Personal Training Dept., Balanced Body University, American Council on Exercise (ACE) and has taught over 400 Physical Therapists how to incorporate Pilates into their PT program. Barbara is a nationally ranked tennis and pickleball player, Ironman triathlete and she is one of the first 40 women worldwide to have run a marathon on all 7 continents.

Certifications

  • First Tier Member of the Pilates Method Alliance (PMA)
  • Gyrotonic Expansion System
  • American Bone Health
  • Degreed Personal Fitness Trainer
  • Medical Exercise Specialist with American Academy of Health, Fitness and Rehabilitation Professionals (AAHFRP)
  • Pilates for Golf and Nordic Walking
  • USPTA Tennis Teaching Professional

 

 

Seminar 12: This is In - But Not for Your Bones or Brain Cells! April 20, 2012 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM

 

Jan WrightJan WrightJan Wright owner of Wright Information Indexing Services, has been indexing and taxonomizing since 1991. Her experience in technical documentation indexing goes deep, from her experience as a print production specialist in the Aldus Corporation documentation department, her work at Visio Corporation on the development of online help and translated indexes, and her work for several Microsoft departments in indexing, taxonomies, and controlled vocabularies. She has been a member of the American Society for Indexing since 1991, has won several awards from the Society for Technical Communication, and in 2009 won the ASI/H.W. Wilson Award for Excellence in Indexing for her index to Real World Indesign CS3, the first technical manual to win the prestigious award.

 

 

WS02: Indexing InDesign April 19, 2012 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Seminar 1: Update on eBooks April 20, 2012 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM
Seminar 15: Trends in Digital Publishing April 21, 2012 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM

Pilar Wyman is a professional freelance indexer and has been writing indexes for over 18 years. She has written over 900 indexes for print and multimedia, for English and Spanish-language materials. Her areas of expertise typically include medical and technical subjects.

She edited the ASI booklet Indexing Specialties: Medicine, frequently consults on indexing, teaches the USDA Applied Indexing course, and, when her schedule permits, provides training and presentations on indexing and related topics. When not indexing, Pilar works as a computer teacher and technical coordinator at a private K-12 school in Annapolis, Maryland.

 

Seminar 2: Choosing Indexing Projects - To Take or Not To Take April 20, 2012 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM

 

Enid ZafranEnid ZafranEnid L. Zafran Since 1989, Enid's company, Indexing Partners LLC, has been meeting the information needs of publishers, authors, and organizations. In 2011, IP met over 320 deadlines, and used the services of 12 freelancers, whom Enid has trained personally. Enid has worked in publishing for 30 years, and has run indexing departments at Banks-Baldwin Law Publishing Co. in Cleveland, Ohio, and at The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (BNA), in Washington, DC. She is a past president of the American Society for Indexing (ASI) and served as a member of its board of directors for over 6 years. In 2010, Enid received the Hines Award from ASI in recognition of her contributions to the field of indexing. She offers a unique training experience for indexers, an Indexing Boot Camp, consisting of three days of one-on-one custom training. She is a founding member of the Institute of Certified Indexers (www.certifiedindexers.com).

 

 

WS04: Double Posting and Its Friends April 19, 2012 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM
Seminar 11: Indexing Standards April 20, 2012 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM
Seminar 18: Contracting Formalities and Informalities April 21, 2012 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM