Speaker Biographies

Nan Badgett, dba Word-a-bil-i-ty, has provided indexing and editorial services to publishers, corporate clients, and authors since 1991. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in French and was trained in indexing through the USDA Graduate School. Nan often prepares indexes from her virtual office. She has watched three different friends become full-time RVers and enjoys a romantic fantasy about a totally mobile lifestyle. Nan is a past president and secretary of the Arizona Chapter of ASI.

Connie Binder has been a freelance indexer since 1998 and began making frequent trips to Las Vegas in 2000. She is skilled at creating book and magazine indexes in casino hotels and finding time to shoot craps between projects (indexing tends to be the more profitable of the two ventures). Her road-trip indexing experience also includes work while on the Pennsylvania turnpike, in airports, on airplanes, and at relatives? homes during the holidays. Connie holds a Bachelor's degree in Anthropology from Michigan State University and an MLS in Library and Information Services from the University of Maryland.

Patricia B. Carlson is the Vice President for Production at Alexander Street Press, LLC, in Alexandria, VA, an electronic publisher of indexed collections in the Humanities. She has an M.S.L.S. from Clarion State University (Pennsylvania) and worked as a cataloger, library manager, and library consultant in financial, business, military, and law libraries and as an indexer in news and humanities indexes.

Barbara J. DeGennaro is a freelance indexer strongly committed to indexing and maintaining high standards for the profession. She has been a member of ASI since 1989 and has indexed a variety of books in many subject areas for over sixteen years. Indexing children?s books is a major part of her business. Barbara is an active member of the Mid- and South Atlantic Chapter of ASI and has served as Chair and Immediate-Past Chair from 2002 to 2004. She has also served as Director-at-Large for ASI.

Richard (Dick) Evans has over forty years experience in the computer industry. He has been, at various times, a computer operator, programmer, systems analyst, technical writer, and human factors engineer. He retired from corporate life in 1992 and started Infodex Indexing Services, Inc. Now he specializes in indexing computer books for both corporate clients and publishing houses, as well as providing workshops that teach technical writers about indexing. Dick is a senior member of the Carolina Chapter of STC and a recipient of the Distinguished Chapter Service award in 1999. He is a past president of ASI at both the chapter and national levels.

Linda S. Dunn has been a periodical indexer for over twenty-five years. Former editor of the print index, Film Literature Index, she worked as an indexer and abstractor for EBSCO Publishing during the transition of the Film Literature Index into the database Film & Television Literature Index. She currently works as a freelance indexer for several periodical databases both large and small. She is a member of both the New York and the New England chapters of ASI.

Sandi Frank, recently retired as Director of The New York Botanical Garden Press, is currently a freelance indexer and editor. In addition, she teaches Freelance Book Indexing at New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies and has been actively involved with the ASI Training in Indexing Course as Interim Course Administrator and Exam Grader. She lives in the suburbs of New York with her husband, two mastiffs, and a cat.

Heather Hedden, currently an information taxonomist with Viziant Corporation, has offered freelance services in book and web site indexing and in taxonomy creation through Hedden Information Management. She previously served as an in-house periodical indexer and then senior vocabulary editor at Thomson Gale. She continues to teach online courses in web site indexing, both independently and through the Continuing Education Program of Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science. She has published numerous articles on web site indexing and has recently written a book, Indexing Specialties: Web Sites, for ASI and Information Today, Inc. Heather was manager of the Web Indexing SIG of ASI from 2005 to 2006 and was president of the New England Chapter of ASI in 2006.

Jayne A. Hitchcock is an internationally recognized cyber crime expert who volunteers with the U.S. Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime, the National Center for Victims of Crime, and numerous law enforcement agencies worldwide. Additionally, she has worked tirelessly with our legislators in the drafting and passing of many of this country's Internet laws. She has been featured on CNN, 48 Hrs., Primetime, Good Morning America, and The Montel Williams Show, and was selected by Lifetime TV as their "Champion For Change." Jayne has worked for the University of Maryland University College since 1996. She writes regularly for several magazines, including Laptop, Naval History, and Link-UP. The author of eight books, including Net Crimes & Misdemeanors: Outmaneuvering Web Spammers, Stalkers, and Con Artists, 2nd Edition (Information Today, Inc., 2006), Jayne also serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Cyber Crimes and Criminal Justice and is a regular contributor to several magazines.

James N. Jackson has been interested in genealogy and local history since the mid-70s. He is Past-President of both the Detroit Society for Genealogical Research and the Oakland County Genealogical Society. He has been index editor of the Detroit Society for Genealogical Research (DSGR) Magazine since 1994 and has written numerous articles on genealogy and genealogical indexing. He received the 2006 Lucy Mary Kellogg Award from the Michigan Genealogical Council for "significant contribution to the preservation and education of Genealogy and History" and has spoken at numerous genealogical conferences.

Ken Karpinski is a Senior Project Manager and the Indexing Coordinator for Techbooks, a full-service packager for scores of the world's largest publishers of books and journals, including Cambridge University Press, LWW, Springer, and University of Chicago Press. Having trained and worked as a freelance indexer prior to joining Techbooks, Ken has seen both sides of the relationship.

Ilana Kingsley is a Web-librarian at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Prior to working at UAF, Ilana was a technical writer at IBM and an information specialist at Cisco Systems. Ilana?s hobbies include indexing, dog mushing, and backpacking. She lives near Fairbanks with her husband, cat, and 29 sled dogs.

Judy Kip has been indexing books since 1992.? In her pre-indexing life she worked in public relations for Philadelphia University, the Philadelphia Flower and Garden Show, and the Cheltenham Township Library System. Judy is the current treasurer and a past president of the Western New York Chapter and served on the ASI Board from 2002 to 2004.

Joy Dean Lee was educated at Ball State University and spent 24 years in public education as librarian, English teacher, and publications adviser. Her mid-life "new" career was as a software educational consultant; the next was in publishing, where she learned several skills, including indexing, at the former Macmillan Computer Publishing. In 1997 she started freelance indexing, and two years later purchased a small RV and began a vagabond lifestyle. She sold the RV, but circumstances have kept her on the road. Now she combines indexing with house/pet-sitting from coast-to-coast and has no plans to settle down.

Fred Leise is owner and principal of ContextualAnalysis, LLC, a company providing information architecture consulting services and specializing in metadata and taxonomy development. He is recognized as one of the leaders in the taxonomy development field, having co-authored a series of seminal articles on controlled vocabularies and faceted classifications for the online journal BoxesandArrows.com. Fred also serves as vice president of product development for Intuitect.com. In addition to his consulting work, Fred has been a back-of-the-book indexer since 1995, specializing in scholarly works in the humanities. He is a former board member of ASI and is a member of Content Management Professionals, the Information Architecture Institute, the Consortium of Indexing Professionals, and the Interaction Design Association.

Frances S. Lennie, owner of Indexing Research and developer of its best-known product, CINDEX™ software for professional indexers, has been indexing for 30 years in a variety of disciplines. Primarily a medical indexer, she also delves into scholarly, historical,? textbook, and periodical indexing in both traditional and embedded form to better understand the changing needs of indexers.? Frances has also served on ASI's Board as Treasurer (1992–1998) and a Presidential term (2002–2005).

Marlene London has been a freelance indexer for nearly a decade and loves the great variety of projects on which she works. She is a member of the New York City chapter of ASI and has been published in Key Words. When not indexing, Marlene is traveling with her husband Albert, studying Italian, reading, gardening, or exercising. She is a lifelong proponent of exercise combined with nutrition and a balanced lifestyle.

Patricia Masserman currently works as a Content Project Manager for Courseware at Microsoft Learning. She has spent the last 2-1/2 years intimately involved in the development and testing of TIM and is responsible for training and providing troubleshooting support for the UID indexing process.

Julie Matson has over 20 years of proofreading, typesetting and paralegal experience.? She is currently the owner of MyProofreader.biz, which focuses on proofreading indexes as well as depositions for court reporters.? She has been proofing for indexers for approximately five years.? In addition, she is a beginning indexer. Julie is an officer in the South Central Chapter of ASI.

Kate Mertes is sole proprietor of Mertes Editorial Services. Since 1998, she has provided indexing, information retrieval, and editorial expertise for complex, challenging projects in law and the humanities. Kate took her B.A. degree in medieval studies, a Ph.D. in medieval history, and a post-doctoral degree in theology, and after teaching at the university level for several years moved into publishing with a stint at Oxford English Dictionaries. She worked nine years as a managing editor of indexing with Research Institute of America. Kate served on the ASI Board from 1998 to 2004 and is a past president of ASI and a founding fellow of the Consortium of Indexing Professionals.

Jill O?Neill, Director of Planning & Communication for the National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS), provides industry analysis to its members. NFAIS is an international membership organization of content and technology providers. Jill?s personal background is in scholarly and academic information services, having worked for such notable content providers as John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier, and Thomson Scientific. She has been working with Internet search tools since the launch of Alta Vista in 1995, frequently offering advice to publishing colleagues on emerging technologies and their practical application in academic and corporate information environments.

Mary L. Onorato is a product manager in Literature Publishing at Thomson Gale in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Her experience at Gale has included positions in Editorial, Content Management, and Systems Analysis and contributions in various capacities to Contemporary Authors New Revisions, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Literature Resource Center, Times Digital Archive, Eighteenth-Century Collections Online, and The Shakespeare Collection.

Janet Perlman has more than 25 years of experience in indexing. She specializes in indexing scientific and engineering materials and textbooks, and also provides indexing services for Spanish-language materials. Janet has been involved with ASI at both state and national levels and is the winner of its 2006 Hines Award. She has written and given workshops on business aspects of an indexing practice and quality in indexing. She is currently the Course Administrator for ASI's Training in Indexing course.

David K. Ream is Leverage Technologies? chief consultant for publishers. He has a B.S. in Engineering and an M.S. in Computer Science from Case Western Reserve University. He 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. Current 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 batch composition services.

Judith Reveal has published both fiction and non fiction in national magazines and local newspapers. In addition to serving as editor of Key Words, she writes a monthly column for Caroline Review and writes and edits newsletters, business directories, and press releases for several nonprofit organizations. She writes business profiles for Pagoda Publishing and has researched and ghostwritten projects for Gale Research, Inc. Judy has served as President and Secretary of the Maryland Writers? Association and has taught creative writing at Chesapeake College and various arts organizations on Maryland?s Eastern Shore. She is a back-of-the-book indexer and has prepared indexes for topics in history, baseball, science, retirement, and current events.

Carol Roberts has been indexing scholarly books for 13 years. Athough her background is philosophy, she has indexed all over the humanities. Carol also gives workshops at the national level and for ASI chapters on marketing, Cindex techniques, and index editing. If you know Carol, then you already know what habit she feeds with her indexing income: ballroom dancing!

Kay Schlembach has been called a "marvelous, vivacious speaker" and has been teaching Basic Indexing for a decade. Coming from a diverse background, including home schooling and real estate appraisal, Kay has been a full-time indexer since 1997. She believes in service, and is currently an ASI Director, on the ASI Training Committee, and an exam?marker for the ASI Training in Indexing Distance Learning Course. She has remained actively involved with ASI's South Central Chapter, as well as participating in the Wilson Award process. She credits her students for the continued success of Basic Indexing and thanks her family for their eternal patience.

Kamm Schreiner is the owner of SKY Software and a graduate of Virginia Tech. He is also the programmer for SKY Index Professional. He has been presenting workshops on using SKY Index for most of the annual ASI conferences since SKY Index Professional was released. He is a member of the American Society of Indexers and is an amateur musician and songwriter in his spare time.

Richard Shrout is a founding partner of Potomac Indexing, LLC, a company formed to provide a full range of indexing services including back-of-the-book and database indexing. Potomac Indexing is a unique company in many respects, including having four equal partners, no fixed location, and no full-time employees. It is just one of several different types of indexing groups that are forming to meet the demands of continuing change in the publishing industry. He has worked successfully as a freelance back-of-the-book indexer for more than 15 years and currently serves on the Board of ASI.

Janyne Ste Marie is from Green Bay, WI. She has been indexing for 5 years, largely in the areas of science and medicine, with additional forays into history and computer science. She is a graduate of the USDA course and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. She has been a member of ASI for 5 years. Current SIG memberships include Scholarly Indexing, SciMed, and Sports-Fitness. She has been using PDF files in indexing for 2–3 years.

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.

Carolyn Weaver, a former medical librarian, has been a freelance indexer since 1991, specializing in health, behavioral, and social sciences books and journals. She is President-Elect of ASI and an ASI co-webmaster, served two terms as ASI Treasurer, and has twice served as President of the Pacific NW Chapter. As an avid RVer since the 1970s, she has indexed in national parks and campgrounds all over the Western U.S. and now rates campgrounds by the quality of their WiFi connections and cellphone signals.

Martin L. White has been an indexer since 1982. He began his indexing career with Encyclop?dia Britannica. He has been a freelance indexer since 1990, full-time since 1995. He specializes in scholarly books, but also indexes trade books, textbooks, and medical journals. His index for John Patrick Diggins?s The Promise of Pragmatism: Modernism and the Crisis of Knowledge and Authority (University of Chicago Press, 1994) received the 1995 H.W. Wilson Award. He is the author of "Indexing Lives" in Index It Right! Advice from the Experts, Volume 1 (2005).

Diana Witt has been indexing almost all her adult life, starting with her first job at the New York Times Index right after college. She has been a freelance indexer for many years and still loves her work. She finds it difficult to keep abreast of changes like PDFs and CUP/XML, but she loves the challenge, and hopes ASI and its members can promote indexing quality and integrity into the 21st century. She has twice served as ASI President (1991–92 and 2002–03). Diana regularly migrates between two homes—hence her extensive experience with mobile indexing.

Jan C. Wright is an indexer, taxonomist, and controller of wild vocabularies who has operated her own business, Wright Information Indexing Services, since 1991. She is a member of ASI, the Society for Technical Communication, and the American Society for Information Science and Technology. She was the editor of A to Z: The Newsletter of STC's Indexing SIG until its untimely demise in 2006, and is currently one of the instructors of the University of California Berkeley?s Indexing Course. She has extensive experience in software documentation and online system indexing, and is intrigued with the interfaces for finding information. She's abandoned big city life to live in the mountains of New Mexico with her husband Chris and three silly cats, and loves to watch the ravens gather at sunset.

Pilar Wyman is a professional freelance indexer. She has been involved in indexing since late 1983, writing indexes since 1990. She specializes in medicine and technology and has written over 800 indexes. She teaches the ASI Training in Indexing course and the USDA Graduate School Applied Indexing course, and she has mentored many students of indexing. When her schedule permits, she gives training workshops and presentations on indexing and related topics. She served as Key Words editor for six years.

Enid Zafran is the owner of Indexing Partners, LLC, which specializes in legal indexing as well as other topics such as public policy, art, history, psychology, and education. She was the President of ASI (2004–2005) and a founding member of the Consortium of Indexing Professionals. She has given numerous presentations at ASI conferences both nationally and locally. She has edited Starting an Indexing Business (1998) andIndexing Specialties: Scholarly Books (2005).