See Also — October 2017

October is here and hopefully cooler weather with it. Grab a hot drink, and read what we’ve been up to.

ASI Webinars: Building Your Blog—Content Creation to Enhance Your Success
ASI Member Wins Purple Pen
In Memoriam
Upcoming and Recent Chapter Events
SIG News
Spotlight—Sergey Lobachev


ASI Webinars

Building Your Blog: Content Creation to Enhance Your Success


ASI’s next webinar is “Building Your Blog: Content Creation to Enhance Your Success” with Meghan Miller Brawley on Wednesday, November 1, 2017.

Blogging has been around for long enough that it’s often overlooked when it comes to social-media-heavy marketing. While indexing isn’t usually the first subject people think of when starting a blog, having a blog can be a valuable part of your overall strategy. This webinar will help you figure out how—and why—to dust off or start up a business blog, whether or not you already have a website. The presentation includes planning, content creation, consistency, and making time to keep things going.

For more information click here.


Replay for SKY Index Pro: Minimizing Editing for Increased Efficiency

On September 27, Anne Fifer presented the webinar SKY Index Pro: Minimizing Editing for Increased Efficiency. If you registered for it, you can play it back any time. If you missed it, no problem! All of the ASI recorded webinars and online courses are available for purchase, and members of ASI and its sister organizations receive a discounted price.

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ASI Member Sergey Lobachev is Purple Pen Winner

ASI Member Sergey Lobachev has won the 2017 Purple Pen Contest for New Indexers for his index of The Magnificent Nahanni: The Struggle to Protect a Wild Place, to be published by the University of Regina Press. Awarded by the Institute of Certified Indexers (ICI), the Purple Pen is judged anonymously. All new indexers who have completed a training course in the previous 5 years are eligible to compete. Read this month’s Spotlight to learn more about Sergey.


In Memoriam Mauro Pittaro

In September we learned that ASI member Mauro Pittaro had passed away on August 21, two weeks before his 82nd birthday, from metastatic colon cancer. Mauro was the leader of the Taxonomies and Controlled Vocabularies SIG from 2011 to 2015. Our condolences to his family.


Chapter Events

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Upcoming Chapter Events

Upper Midwest Chapter of ASI Fall Meeting
Saturday, October 21, 2017
12:30 – 3:30 pm
Mitchell Hamline School of Law
St. Paul, MN

The Upper Midwest of ASIChapter is hosting its fall meeting. We’ll begin with lunch and then a presentation on tips and shortcuts for CINDEX users. We’ll also have a discussion on what works in marketing and current trends in rates. We’ll be wrapping up the meeting with a discussion on the future direction of the UMW chapter. Hope to see you there!
Cost: $25 for meeting and lunch, $10 for meeting only.

RSVPs must be received by 5:00 p.m. on October 18. Please RSVP to Meg.

Cindex
Chicago/Great Lakes Fall Workshop:
Index Structure, Textbooks, Peer Review
Saturday, October 21, 2017
8:30 a.m. – 4:45 p.m.
Chicago, IL 60614

Join us for a full-day program, including a two-hour session on index structure by Fred Leise, a textbooks presentation by Leoni McVey. and a peer index review session led by Fred Leise, Caryl Wenzel, and Leoni McVey.
Continental breakfast and lunch are included. The workshop will be followed by an informal dinner at a nearby restaurant at each person’s expense.

Additional details, including schedule, transportation options, and registration are available here. If you have any questions, please email.

Space is limited, so make your reservation now!

Cost: ASI Members, Registration received by Oct. 9: $100; Registration received by Oct. 16: $120
Non-ASI Members, Registration received by Oct. 9: $110; Registration received by Oct. 16: $130

Recent Chapter Events

PNW Fall Chapter Meeting

The Pacific Northwest Chapter held its fall meeting on September 16 in Vancouver, Washington, at the Springhill Marriott. Eighteen people, mainly from Oregon and Washington with a few from as far away as Montana and Southern California, gathered for a full day of programming.


The morning included a session on tax deduction tips by Scott Smiley, and a lively session of Speed Networking, led by Sam Arnold-Boyd. Every participant meeting every other participant was a good way to precede a networking lunch, in which members walked to a variety of nearby restaurants.


After lunch, chapter president Scott Smiley and ASI Board member Paul Sweum conducted a business meeting, followed by an excellent presentation on cookbook indexing by Thérèse Shere.

The day concluded with a group discussion, led by Madge Walls, for solving “Knotty Bits,” perplexing indexing problems that participants submitted ahead of time. After the sessions, most of the participants gathered for dinner at the nearby Old Spaghetti Factory to continue to get to know one another and to plan for the future. The feedback for the event indicated that the participants had a great time and learned a lot!


SIG News

The Digital Publications Indexing SIG has new content on its website since last month. There is now information on embedded indexing for publishers and on ebook indexing for both indexers and publishers, thanks to Jan Wright and Steve Ingle. Lucie Haskins had already contributed information for indexers on getting started in embedded indexing. Visit here.


Spotlight

This month we put the spotlight on Sergey Lobachev, the winner of the 2017 Purple Pen Contest for New Indexers. Sergey is a member of both ASI and its sister organization ISC/SCI. Congratulations, Sergey!
If you would like to nominate someone to be in the Spotlight or be there yourself, 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 with my family in London, Ontario. I am originally from Russia. I lived in St. Petersburg for more than 20 years. I immigrated to Canada 13 years ago, and now I feel I am Canadian.

What is your educational background?
I have a doctorate degree in Russian history from St. Petersburg University in Russia and a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Western Ontario in Canada.

Do you have any hobbies, travels, volunteer work, or other interesting things to share?
My hobby is reading and academic writing. I write occasional articles for The Indexer and reviews for Publisher’s Weekly. I am volunteering for the Indexing Society of Canada, where I am currently a board member and the editor of the Bulletin (Canadian newsletter).

What kind of work did you do before you studied indexing? Are you still doing that or other work in addition to indexing?
I worked in academic and public libraries for several years after I graduated from the library school. It was all contract work. I also taught a History of Libraries course at the University of Western Ontario. I am currently indexing full time (for the past two years), and I am too busy to do something else.

When did you start indexing? When did you join ASI?
I finished the Berkeley course in late summer of 2013 and started my business shortly after. I believe I joined both ASI and ISC in the fall of 2013.

Do you also index in Russian? If so, do you have software that handles the Cyrillic alphabet or do you work on index cards or in Word or something else?
From my knowledge, indexing doesn’t exist in Russia. Academic presses usually compile concordances of personal names and subjects. This work is normally done by low-ranking personnel in house. There is no demand for quality indexing and there is no opportunity for freelancers. Cindex can handle the Cyrillic alphabet as good as Latin.

What were some of the challenges of this book that won the competition?
The Magnificent Nahanni: The Struggle to Protect a Wild Place is an interdisciplinary study. Indexing such books is a challenging task. You need to think thematically and look at each subject from various perspectives. The main heading “fur trade,” for example, absorbs information about economic effect, but also about history, technology, environmental impact, and impact on the Indigenous population. Another challenge was classification of entries related to the Nahanni region and its inhabitants. I made a distinction between Nahanni ecosystem, Nahanni National Park Reserve, Nahanni people, Nahanni River, Nahanni Valley. This is where indexing skills play a critical role. Finally, it was important to correctly index Indigenous names, which often contained diacritics and special symbols.

For you, what is the best advantage of ASI membership?

The best advantage is the opportunity to promote myself via the ASI listing and to have access to the wealth of knowledge through webinars and networking.

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