It’s already April! We hope you’ll join us later this month at our annual conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. Lots going on here at ASI.
ASI's Conference “Bloom in the Desert” is nearly here
ASI Webinar Replay: Textbook Indexing with Diana Witt
Hines Award Winner announced
New Editor for Key Words
Upcoming Chapter Events
Western New York Chapter
Recent Member Activities
ASI Members at Tucson Festival of Books
ISC/SCI Conference in Ottawa, Ontario
Spotlight
ASI 2019 Conference “Bloom in the Desert”
Scottsdale, Arizona
April 25–27, 2019
Our annual conference is just weeks away! More than 25 speakers are presenting educational offerings to enhance your skills and indexing expertise. Find the list of sessions in the conference program and register now.
This year’s optional pre-conference program includes a choice of two full-day workshops:
- New Indexers: Indexing from A to Z, with Heather Ebbs
- Climbing Camelback: Intermediate/Advanced Topics in Indexing, with Fred Leise
We look forward to welcoming you to the conference at the opening reception, Welcome to the Oasis. If you have never attended an ASI conference before, you have the opportunity to sign up for a Conference Buddy. You will be paired with another indexer who has been to conferences in the past and can help you navigate all the offerings and introduce you to other indexers.
Our keynote speaker, Colin Pearson, is from the Musical Instrument Museum in Scottsdale, Arizona. Applying a number of principles we use in indexing, the museum works with a continuously evolving classification system for the instruments in its collection. In his keynote presentation, Classifying Musical Instruments in a Museum Context, Colin will discuss issues related to searchability, usability, and implementation.
The Friday-night Awards Reception provides an opportunity to congratulate our colleagues for a job well done. The Hines Award will be presented to an ASI member who has given distinguished service over an extended period of time to ASI. The ASI Excellence in Indexing award recognizes an indexer who has written an index that can serve as a model of the high standards of index quality. The reception also provides an opportunity to thank the many volunteers who give so much of their time to help with all that ASI does. These volunteers will be recognized as members of The Order of the Kohlrabi. This year’s event will be in a unique location that will make for a memorable evening.
We look forward to seeing you in sunny Scottsdale, Arizona!
Webinar Replay: Textbook Indexing—Basic skills and guidelines to create a good textbook index
Diana Witt recently presented a webinar on indexing textbooks: handling non-text material; creating name, subject, and company indexes simultaneously; updating versus creating textbook indexes.
If you registered for the webinar, you can replay it as often as you like. If you missed it completely, you can still get the webinar.
Hines Award Winner
Fred Leise has won the Hines Award for his long-time service to ASI. He will receive the award at the ASI Conference later this month. You can read about his contributions here and about his personal story in this month’s Spotlight, below.
New Editor for Key Words
Long-time indexer Janet Perlman has been selected as the new editor of Key Words. You can read about her experience and goals for the journal here. Learn more about Janet in a previous Spotlight.
Upcoming Chapter Events
Western New York Chapter Spring Meeting
Business Strategies for Indexers
Saturday, May 11, 2019, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Community Room, 50 Charlotte Street (Charlotte Square in East End), Rochester, NY 14607
Sergey Lobachev will discuss the main components of business strategy development and explain why strategic thinking is important for the overall success of your business.
Registration is $30 for ASI members, $45 for nonmembers. Lunch and refreshments are included. See the Chapter page for details and registration information.
Recent Member Activities
Tuscon Festival of Books
Here we are before starting our shifts in an information booth and at the teacher credentialing table. From left: ASI members Cindy Coan, Nan Badgett, Amron Gravett, and EFA members Leah Rubin and Sharon Miller.
Though not an official ASI event, ASI members shared their recent marketing experience at a book festival. Three ASI members and two Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) members volunteered at the Tucson Festival of Books on March 2, 2019.
“We were required to wear the safety orange volunteer T-shirts, but also sported large buttons identifying our organizations. After volunteering, we independently marketed our services and distributed ASI bookmarks.”
The Tucson Festival of Books is the third-largest book fair in the country (135,000 attendance in 2017); this was its 11th year.
Indexing Society of Canada Conference
The Indexing Society of Canada / Société canadienne d’indexation invites you to join them at their annual conference on Friday and Saturday, May 24 and 25, on the University of Ottawa campus. The conference theme is “Beyond the Page—New Platforms, New Realities.”
Special sessions include a keynote address by two distinguished librarians on film and indigenous matters; a presentation by indexers from Canada’s lower house of parliament on how the launch of information integration has replaced traditional subject indexes and how they have adapted; a panel discussion on ethics in our industry.
The sessions on indexing practices include working with scholarly texts, indexing biography and memoirs, structuring indexes, and editing indexes “from the get-go,” and indexing locora.
The conference will be immediately followed by an optional full-day workshop on indexing names, given by Enid Zafran.
Early-bird conference rates apply until April 15. The full program and other information can be found on the ISC/SCI conference page.
Spotlight
In this month’s Spotlight is Fred Leise, the newest Hines Award winner. If you would like to be in the Spotlight or nominate someone else, contact the editor, Ælfwine Mischler.
Where do you live now? Where are you originally from? Do you share your home with pets or family?
I live in Chicago, where I’ve been since 1982. I’m originally from the Washington, DC, area and have previously lived and worked in Baltimore, Buffalo, Albany, and New York City. I currently share my home with my husband, who is a concert pianist.
What is your educational background?
I have a bachelor’s in mathematics from the University of Maryland, College Park, although I started college as a violin performance major.
Do you have any hobbies, travels, volunteer work, or other interesting things to share?
Knitting (which I’ve been doing for nearly 10 years now); our third bedroom is fondly known as the “yarn lounge.” I also love gardening. I make my own sourdough bread every week from a natural starter and recently started brewing kombucha, which has been a great success.
What kind of work did you do before you studied indexing? Are you still doing that or other work in addition to indexing?
I had a 25-year career as an arts manager, working in the administrative offices of several orchestras, choruses, and early music ensembles. In addition to indexing, I also work as a taxonomy consultant, after having trained as an information architect with Argus Associates in Ann Arbor.
When did you start indexing? When did you join ASI?
I completed my first index in March of 1995. I think I joined ASI the next year. I still remember attending one of my early conferences, which was in Richmond, I believe. The guest of honor at our awards dinner was Julia Child, who regaled us with the best way to boil a live lobster.
For you, what is the best advantage of ASI membership?
Networking, networking, and networking. I’ve gotten lots of referrals from other members and have enjoyed working as an associate for Potomac Indexing. ASI is a great place to learn more about indexing and offers multiple ways to continue expanding one’s skills as an indexer. Volunteering for ASI is also a great way to give back to our profession.
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