Minutes of the Fall Meeting

of the Heartland Chapter of the American Society for Indexing

October 6, 2012

MCL Cafeteria, Indianapolis, IN

In Attendance: Marilyn Augst, Cathy Seckman, Kay Reglein, Shelley Quattrochi, Meredith Murray, Margaret, Diana Witt, Sharon Hilgenberg, Paula McCoy, Mary Peterson, and Cherry Delaney.


Business Meeting

Margaret Hentz opened the meeting October 6, 2012 at the Richmond MCL Township Line Cafeteria.

Mary Peterson approved the minutes and Cathy Seckman seconded the minutes.

Mary Peterson reviewed the Treasury report. Since she moved right after the Spring meeting, she had lost track of the box containing all the receipts and checks paid in May.

The treasurer’s report was approved and seconded.

Margaret Hentz sent out brochures to library schools.

We have 39 members. We had a few more members in 2010. There was a discussion about how to grow our membership. There have been as few as 6 members and up to 20 members. We don’t think that there is anything we can do to increase the membership.  Paula said there were people on the membership list that do not attend our meetings. They will never attend the meetings. They will read the newsletter. Some members cannot drive so there are physical limitations. We have extreme difficulties getting people to run for office so we may need to get new members. Marilyn has gone through the officer rotation twice already. Tell people what you do and hopefully we can add new members. Cherry passed photos around that were found in the box and helped to share some of the Heartland chapter history. Marilyn thinks she attended every Heartland meeting since she joined.

Cathy Seckman went to a local copy shop to get the Heartland Chapter pads printed that were anniversary gifts to those attending. The copy shop also had books that were self-published. The copy shop people looked at the brochure and didn’t realize that there were indexers and so she gave them her business card and shared what we do.

Meridith  Murray said we already know what will be presented for the 2013 Spring meeting.

Sharon Hilgenberg’s freelancers group attended our spring meeting. We might get better attendance in the Indy location as it is also closer for the Chicago folks. There are several indexers who don’t belong to ASI who attended our Spring meeting in 2011. Lisa Reynolds was at the Spring meeting and Meridith had an update on her health. Lisa had brain cancer that prevented her from completing the Berkeley Online indexing course. She has had some cognitive impairment.

Next spring we will have an election. Meridith will swap with Margaret and Margaret will transition on out of her position. Mary said that having the meeting in Indy would cost another 1 ½ hours travel time.

Having the meeting in the afternoon helps for those that must travel a distance. Air fare is ridiculously expensive. Devon lives in Chelsea, Michigan. Mary, also from Michigan, wants to feel still part of the chapter. In Michigan, there are no other groups for them. The Chicago group meets on Friday and Saturday and that doesn’t work well for working people. What about Fort Wayne as a location? No one lives near there. We think the rotation between Indy and Richmond works. With the meeting in the afternoon, Mary can leave in the morning. If we could have these meetings virtually, it would increase the number who could attend. Marilyn talked about how John Bealle took a map and push pins to see where everyone lived and where was a half way point. Meridith did this with Google Maps and it was pretty fairly evenly divided between Indy and Richmond. She plotted the members on Google maps. Do we give mileage to the officers? Devon said they do pay mileage but she did not charge for it. Mary would like to drive down in the morning and not have to deal with rush hour Friday night traffic. We don’t want to exclude anyone.

Paula McCoy and Laura Ewald talked about the newsletter. Carol Reed was not here. They are working on the Fall newsletter. They have articles from Margie Towery (Best Practices series). Laura will work on an article about Diana Witt’s presentation. Shelley Quattrocchi will talk about some of the history of the chapter. Paula is still looking for anything filler for the newsletter. Cherry Delaney will write one about Berkeley online course. Laura asked if we could write up anecdotes about clients from hell but we won’t call it that. Example: The guy that left the country with the ABA reports and never paid her (Meridith). Informative articles but no names named. Client from hell – send to Carol or Paula or Laura.

She is also concerned that someone else needs to know how to upload the newsletter. We think John might be able to help with this.

Website – Shelley and Cathy liked the website. The culinary group is horribly out of date on the ASI SIG website. We currently link to this but it has dead links.

Policies and Procedures – Marilyn Augst and Shelley Quattrocchi did a lot of work on this. There were a few additional revisions on this like terminology changes. Talk about e-voting. They made things more consistent. Marilyn asked who has to clean up the draft copy and put it on the website? Shelley said she will clean it up and put the year with revisions. Send back up files to members. Web site must be listed as two words in Chicago style. Internet is capitalized. Discussion on whether web site is two words, one word, capitalized or not. Marilyn motioned that we accept all changes as proposed and Meridith seconded.

The newsletter committee is also having discussions about using website or web site.

Marilyn said we had to put this to a vote. All ayes.

New Business: Sharon Hilgenberg has been with ASI forever and she has every one of their newsletters. Diana said she should send them to ASI because they are missing some. Sharon has boxes of them. Some of them are just stapled together. She is working with her husband to de-clutter her home where they have resided for 40 years. Scan them??? Since Judy Reveal has been doing the newsletter, they have digital copies of them.

Margaret raffled off a basket of goodies. Meridith won the first one. Kay Reglin won the second bag of goodies.

Cathy motioned we adjourn the business meeting. Sharon seconded the motion.


Presentation 2

Sharon Hilgenberg presented after the business meeting. Sharon started out in the publishing business in hot metal in the dark ages. She learned to index backwards. She didn’t know about ASI or that there was an indexing course. She worked for a publisher that had an indexer who wanted to be a stock broker. Sharon asked her publisher what the job involved. She and her boss talked. She went back in the morning and told her what they would pay her. She was hired. She was trying to decide what she would do when she grew up. She had to come up with a description of what an indexer is/does. She likes to make little chocolate yummies. She came up with her definition of what is an index. She likes to do puzzles. You get a picture of what is inside the book. She is known for her really large, detailed indexes. Most of her clients don’t tell her how many pages she is limited to for an index. 700-page book and only 6 pages for the index. This publisher was really young and new. How do you figure out how much room you need for an index? Approximately 5% of the total pages. Sharon needs 6%-7% for an index. Publishers requirements: they will send you a sample index. Take a look at what they have, download. First level is capitalized, only second level, no third level. Did you really allow the previous indexer to do this in the book? Never mind. nJet- publisher loved her index. nJa –you didn’t use monospace font. She hadn’t been told to do this. Publishers requirements are so different. Sharon learned on the job. She knew who she was talking to. All the freelance indexers are to cater to the reader, not the publisher. Sharon did a book on groundwater hydrology. The text was clear. It was clear what the author thought was important.

People are in a hurry so they use the index. Java for C++. They did a great job. Terms listed at the beginning of the chapter. The publisher called and said she wasn’t to use the C++ terms. Sharon used them because until they had read the book, they wouldn’t know the Java terms. Sex for dummies – Sharon indexed this book. They took two entries out of the book. Abortion was removed.

Who am I talking to? That is what criteria Sharon uses in deciding how to create the index. Sharon has taken 25 years of classes from ASI and she has learned something at each conference.

Front matter – about 1% of publishers will send the front matter. Most times it hasn’t been written yet. In the book she was indexing the front matter was talking to designers. She decided the audience was very technical. The front matter is most helpful for deciding the audience. The first chapter of the book tells you who the audience is. This will tell you what the expectations should be of what the material is and what is important. Bolded text for this author was what was important.

Do you have introductions to books? Some scholarly books give you that.

Manuscripts from India have so many mistakes. They don’t use the same computer software we do and they are not able to keep the formatting. The editing being done overseas is horrendous. There are so many changes.

A good thing to do as you are indexing the book is to write a short paragraph of who is reading this book. Describe who is reading this book. Sharon said the publisher said the author didn’t like her index. What the author wanted was a concordance. She wrote to the author about what the reader was coming to the book – their background and how the person would use the book. The publisher made a copy of the email she sent to the author and they sent it to all their indexers. The indexer should be able to describe who is reading this book, how they were going to use it. She used her write up to decide how to do the index. You have to picture who your audience is. The terms confuse the newbie. For the beginner you have to take familiar terms and make them familiar with the unfamiliar. You have to hold the intermediate hand as well but less than the beginner. One of the things she did when she was indexing different kinds of books was to go to beginner computer groups and list all the terms or questions that the absolute beginner would want to know.

She went back to college to get her degree. She is 67. She encourages us to audit a class online.