Marie Kondo, the author of The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, teaches a method to help us deal with the material items in our lives. In her Netflix series, “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo”, she helps desperate unhappy people who are wallowing in clutter by showing them how to get their houses in order once and for all. Her method includes techniques, such as folding laundry, as well as approaches toward material things, like thanking an item for its service before you discard it. To decide what to keep and what to let go, you ask yourself “Does this spark joy?”
Indexers know well the joy of finishing an index. It’s an intense process that can get away on you if you’re not careful. You’re not done just because you’ve typed in all the entries. You still have the editing, and that’s where it’s easy to go over budget. You’re conscientious about your work and you’re not going to turn in an index that doesn’t spark joy for your client.
Anne Fifer has a way to make editing less grueling. She is going to give us techniques, approaches, and more when she presents “Editing without pain: Getting your index in shape from the get-go” at the conference in Ottawa, May 24-25.
Stephen Ullstrom and Linda Christian, coordinators for the program, are excited to announce that the Mary Newberry Mentorship Program is now open to receive applications.
As announced at the ISC/SCI AGM in June 2018, this is a new initiative to help both new and mature indexers develop their skills and businesses, to promote excellence in indexing, and to foster relationships within the society.
This is also our first call for applications.
A few points to note:
Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis, and will be treated on a first-come-first-serve basis. So get your applications in early.
We will do our best to find an appropriate mentor, though we cannot guarantee a match or that a mentor will be available right away. We will reply within 30 days, at the latest, about the status of your application and whether we have been able to find a mentor.
As this will be the first cohort, we will be capping the number of concurrent mentorships at six. This cap may change in the future as the program progresses.
12th Floor, Desmarais Building, 55 Laurier Avenue East
The publishing and information world continues to bring new challenges and new opportunities. At this conference, we’ll fine-tune our indexing practices, grow our business skills, offer our support and encouragement to newcomers, and pick the brains of those who have experience.
Ottawa is more than the political centre of Canada. It’s also home to some of the nation’s most important cultural venues. (Our conference site, which is on the University of Ottawa campus in the city’s centre, is just across the street from the new Ottawa Art Gallery.) The city is very walkable, with pathways on either side of the Rideau Canal.
The University of Ottawa is a medium-size campus and east to walk. Conference sessions will be on the top floor of the Desmarais Building (55 Laurier Avenue East). A map will be included in the conference packet.
View and download conference handouts (Members Only content)
Friday
Anne Fifer, “Editing Without Pain” Alexandre Grandmaître and Martine Rocheleau, “Accessing Parliamentary Information: from Traditional Indexes to a Database Integrated Information Management System” Fred Leise, “Brilliantly Structured Indexes Redux: New Realities in Index Structure” Lunch Kate Mertes, “Beyond the Subject Index: The Index Locorum” Gale Rhoades and Marian Sullivan, “Above and Beyond: The Experts Help You Get the Most from Your Indexing Software” Annual General Meeting Banquet and Awards
Saturday
Camille Callison (Canadian Federation of Library Associations) and Katherine Kasirer in “A Behind-the-Screen Look at the Indigenous Knowledge Materials Classification Schema (IMCS) Implementation during the Creation of NFB’s Indigenous Cinema” Enid Zafran, “Indexing Scholarly Books: Go Deep” Ruth Paulauskas (BreathWoRx), “BreathWoRx for Desk Workers” Lunch Kendra Millis, “Indexing Lives” Pierre Joyal on incorporating your business Heather Ebbs, Christine Jacobs, Anne Louise Mahoney, and Elizabeth Schwaiger, “Ethical Choices: Thinking Beyond the Page”
Sunday (optional) – Sold Out
“Names, the Challenge of Indexing”, a full-day workshop with Enid Zafran, has been sold out, but you can be added to the waiting list when you register. Location is same as conference venue.
Friday, May 24: Breakfast around 8, sessions from 9 until 5, followed by banquet at Signatures Restaurant, 453 Laurier Ave. E. Cash bar from 6:15 p.m. Banquet at 7 p.m.
Saturday, May 25: Breakfast around 8, sessions from 9 until 5, followed by optional dinner (pay your own) at Colonnade Pizza, 280 Metcalfe St. from 6 p.m. on.
Sunday, May 26: “Names” workshop from 9 until 4, location is same as conference venue (12th floor, Desmarais Building, 55 Laurier Avenue E.)
Accommodations
We have negotiated special rates for conference attendees at two venues:
University of Ottawa Housing
90U Residence 90 University, less than a five-minute walk to the conference venue Two bedroom suites with double beds and kitchenette for $125 per suite per night Rates apply until April 11, 2019
Lord Elgin Hotel
Lord Elgin Hotel 100 Elgin Street, less than 10 minute walk to the conference venue Classic King, Classic Queen, Classic 2 Queen Beds: $239 for Single or Double Rates apply until April 22
There are many other accommodation options in downtown Ottawa, including boutique hotels such as the Byward Blue Inn and ARC the Hotel, B&Bs such as Auberge McGee’s Inn and Auberge des Arts, and chain hotels such as Novotel, Days Inn, Fairmont and others. Airbnbs in Sandy Hill and the Byward Market area are closest, but Downtown and Centretown are also quite close. Even the Glebe neighborhood is only a 30- to 40-minute walk along the Rideau canal, and it will be a beautiful walk at the end of May.
Indexing names sounds so easy. But names indexing is so much broader than just people—it really encompasses all proper nouns and titles and places—and it requires lots of decision-making and judgment calls on the part of the indexer. No matter what subject area you specialize in, you encounter these name-related issues.
You face the challenges of “foreign” or “ancient” cultures, the possibility of names changing over a lifetime, and countries with former names, present names, and official names. You encounter royals, religious figures, fictional characters, and pseudonyms.
Authors introduce their own wrinkles into our jobs, creating confusion with multiple spellings, and setting up expectations that we don’t even know about in terms of what we should include and exclude from the index.
As our presenter Enid L. Zafran says, “There is so much to talk about in terms of indexing names that we need a whole day devoted to it.”
And that is why the ISC/SCI has chosen to offer a full-day post-conference workshop on “Names” conducted by Enid. She will tell us short-cuts and strategies for entry methods, detail what to include in a entry like parenthetical glosses, how many postings to make per “name,” explain when a name is indexable, and discuss the sorting requirements. Practical advice about dealing with clients and pricing the indexing are interspersed throughout.
To solidify your learning, the workshop includes two hands-on exercises where you’ll practice your new knowledge in expertly navigating names issues.
Please note that this is also the last event of Enid’s public-speaking career—she is hanging up her “presenter” hat, and you won’t want to miss out on this final chance to hear one of the most popular U.S. indexing experts. She has given talks at past ISC/SCI conferences as well as numerous chapter and national conferences in the United States. Her books and articles have offered guidance to many of us for the past few decades. We are honored that Enid has chosen to end this part of her career by coming to Ottawa and spending the day with us!
The ISC/SCI conference is in Ottawa on May 24 – 25, and the “Names” workshop will be held May 26. Registration for both will be on the conference page in a few weeks.
One thing that we love about indexing is the opportunity to read books that we might not discover on our own.
There is another other group that encounters interesting books on the job—the people at Library Archives Canada. This government organization is responsible for preserving Canada’s documentary heritage in all its mediums and formats.
“Preserved heritage” might conjure up the image of books and documents locked away in dark, dry vaults, accessible only with permission granted by secretive bureaucrats. It turns out that the vaults are real, but the access is generous and the “secrecy” is untrue.
In the spirit of the concept that heritage belongs to the people of Canada, LAC puts content online for the public. Besides providing searchable databases, they produce podcasts on the collections and accompany them with Flickr albums. They have a YouTube channel with archival videos and recordings. One initiative still going strong is “Project Naming”, in which they “digitize and identify, through Facebook and Twitter, the Inuit, First Nations and Métis peoples and communities seen in historical photos from our collection.”
Credit: Library Archives Canada
About the vaults, LAC offers a guided tour of their state-of-the-art Preservation Centre. It’s in Gatineau, Quebec, just across the river from downtown Ottawa, which is where we’re having our annual conference May 24-25. You can view the photos of the facility on their Flickr album here, and visit our conference page here.
Marie Kondo, the author of The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, teaches a method to help us deal with the material items in our lives. In her Netflix series, “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo”, she helps desperate unhappy people who are wallowing in clutter by showing them how to get their houses in order once and for all. Her method includes techniques, such as folding laundry, as well as approaches toward material things, like thanking an item for its service before you discard it. To decide what to keep and what to let go, you ask yourself “Does this spark joy?”
Indexing names sounds so easy. But names indexing is so much broader than just people—it really encompasses all proper nouns and titles and places—and it requires lots of decision-making and judgment calls on the part of the indexer. No matter what subject area you specialize in, you encounter these name-related issues.
