ASI 2012 National Conference Highlights

ASI Conference Highlights

The beach at the Bahia Resort, San Diego

Margie Towery reflected on her conference experience: "The sessions I went to concerning epubs raised a lot of questions for indexers. And I came home determined to keep up with what's happening on the Digital Trends Task Force. I was really impressed with their accomplishments in helping to frame EPUB 3.0 in terms of indexes. . . ."

Free time was well spent, says Margie, "riding bikes with friends along the ocean boulevard, smelling the salt air! Several of us also went to Visions, an art quilt museum, as well as the San Diego Watercolor Society gallery, and up to Pt. Loma. It's always fascinating to me to get 'out and about' in a totally different climate."

The Bahia Resort

Pilar Wyman, ASI President

The William D. Evans sternwheeler

Madge Walls presented "Getting Started in Indexing"

Jan Wright shared the progress made by the Digital Trends Task Force

Thea Teich recalls, "The several sessions I attended on the development of standards for e-books were enlightening and clearly presented just how complicated this effort is and how far reaching its ramifications will be. I remain interested in this new direction for ASI. Just the other day, in a completely different context, the potential for textbooks as e-books came up in conversation, and I was able to bring up some of the salient points discussed at the conference that must be addressed before large numbers of textbooks can be converted."

The meeting room on the sternwheeler

Cherry Delaney enjoyed the keynote speech by Francis Lennie: "The topic was indexing as art – impressionism versus precisionism. She likened starting a new index to art. You start your canvas, with subject matter and determining the audience for whom the index is intended. . . . She contrasted precision to exhaustivity. A high level of exhaustivity would be expected in legal, medical, reference texts or cookbooks. A low level of exhaustivity would be expected of newspapers or bibliographies. Historical novels require both precision, names and events described within the book, as well as exhaustivity of information. "

Cherry also attended the InDesign indexing workshop by Jan Wright and Lucie Haskins. "It has a steep learning curve," Cherry notes, "but may be a way to attract more indexing jobs."