Professional Development Series

Canada Revenue Agency: Tax information for self-employed individuals and small business owners
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
1:00 to 3:30 pm ET

Please join us for this session presented by the Canada Revenue Agency Liaison Officer service, just in time for tax season! This webinar is geared to self-employed individuals and small business owners, and will:

  • help you better understand your tax obligations and possible deductions
  • review requirements and processes for GST/HST
  • explain how to avoid common tax errors
  • answer your tax-related questions
  • give you an overview of helpful online tools and electronic services offered by the CRA.

This session is open to all ISC/SCI members, and is relevant for members filing taxes in Canada. You can check the meeting start time in your time zone here: https://dateful.com/time-zone-converter.

Please log in to view the meeting link on the Event page.

National Chat

Indexes with Character
Saturday, February 21, 2026
2:00 to 3:30 pm ET

For our first National Chat of 2026, we invite you to think back over indexes you’ve completed (or reviewed). Which index had the most character? And why? We’ll leave it up to you to define “character”! Please join us for this Zoom chat, open to all members of ISC/SCI. You can check the meeting start time in your time zone here: https://dateful.com/time-zone-converter.
Please log in to view the Zoom link on the Event page.

Reminder of Submission Deadline: ISC/SCI Ewart-Daveluy Award for Excellence in Indexing 2026

Submission deadline: Sunday, March 15, 2026

Submissions are open! The application has never been easier.

  • It’s all online.
  • You don’t need a hard copy — a PDF of the published book AND/OR the PDF sent to you by the publisher plus your Word/RTF file of the index.
  • The cost is only $30.

The winner will receive two tickets to the conference banquet at the next in-person conference.

No restriction to the subject matter or genre — textbooks, cookbooks, guidebooks, memoirs, art books, how-to books, travel books, all books — it’s your index we will be looking at.

Show us how you creatively overcame challenges, resulting in an outstanding, well-structured, easy-to-navigate, clear and comprehensive guide for all of its users.

Give us a challenge. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Maybe you’ll get the prize (which won’t happen if you don’t apply).

This year you can submit indexes published in 2024 or 2025. If you are a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada, this is the time to do it. If you are not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, you may submit an index if you were a member of ISC/SCI at the time you wrote the index.

The deadline for submissions is March 15, 2026. Please see the ISC/SCI website for guidelines, criteria, and the submission form: https://indexers.ca/ewart-daveluy-indexing-award/.

Befores and Afters: Looking at Usability in Cookbook Indexes

Saturday, January 24th, 2026, @2:00-3:30 p.m. Eastern Time

Cookbooks are hands-on texts, requiring intelligent, user-friendly indexes. In our first talk of the year, Gillian Watts will share her indexing expertise with a focus on usability in cookbook indexes. Join us as Gillian takes us through examples from unsatisfactory indexes (befores), explaining why they don’t work well, and demonstrating how they can be improved (afters). In preparation for Gillian’s talk, we invite you to look at the indexes in your favourite cookbooks, and bring your comments and questions.

Gillian Watts is a freelance editor and indexer with more than 30 years’ experience in the field. Although well-known as a cookbook indexer (since 2002), she has also produced hundreds of back-of-the-book indexes in a wide variety of disciplines. She is a long-term volunteer with ISC/SCI and served on the executive for several years. 

Members: log in and check Upcoming Events for the Zoom details.

Diversity in Canadian Publishing Bursary 2026

Application deadline: March 8, 2026

The Indexing Society of Canada (ISC/SCI) is pleased to announce the opening of the application period for its Diversity in Canadian Publishing Bursary.

This bursary is part of ISC/SCI’s special program to contribute to filling a proven lack of diverse voices and the demand for them in the Canadian publishing industry to help achieve equality of opportunity for aspiring indexers belonging to underrepresented and/or marginalized groups.

Indexing is a specialized field, involving close reading, analysis, and organization. Beyond writing back-of-book indexes, indexers use their skills in areas as diverse as embedded (digital) indexing, metadata and database maintenance, cataloguing, glossary writing, thesaurus construction, and project management, to name only a few! Indexing provides endless opportunities for learning, professional exploration, and growth, aided by offerings of the Indexing Society of Canada and other societies worldwide, welcoming individuals from a wide range of educational and professional backgrounds.

The application deadline for the 2026 bursary is 8 March 2026. It will be granted to one person and will cover fees for an approved indexing program, two years of ISC/SCI membership with listing, and entry into the Mentorship program. Please refer to the bursary application for more information, including eligibility requirements.

In February we will be holding an open info session for anyone interested in applying to the bursary. You can ask questions about the bursary, ISC/SCI, and indexing in general. Please check the bursary application website for the ZOOM url closer to the date.

The ISC/SCI and TIDE (The Inclusion, Diversity and Equity) committee look forward to fostering connections within and outside of the publishing industry while working toward diversification, cultural education, and inclusion. Please share this information with your contacts and join us on this exciting and necessary path—one forged by many thoughtful and hardworking people and organizations before us—toward embracing diversity and expanding our knowledge and understanding together.

LEARN MORE: https://indexers.ca/volunteer/tide/

APPLY HERE: https://indexers.ca/tide-application/

CONTACT US: tide@indexers.ca