Indexing Society of Canada

Diversity in Canadian Publishing Bursary 2025

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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 2025 bursary is 30 September 2025. 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 the third week of  September 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 the 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

2025 Ewart-Daveluy Indexing Award

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The award committee did not present the Ewart-Daveluy Award in 2025.

The indexes submitted did some things well and tackled the challenges of complex texts. Nonetheless, we agreed that none reached the level of consistent excellence that merits the award.

The committee does not expect perfect indexes, but meeting most of the criteria is essential. All of these criteria are best practices that we should be applying in our indexing work. You can find them on the ISC/SCI’s website.

We encourage you to review the criteria and make use of them in your upcoming projects. Then you’ll be well on your way to submit an index for the 2026 Ewart-Daveluy award.

The call for submissions for the 2026 award will be announced in the fall. There are no restrictions to the subject matter or genre you can submit – we look at all kinds of books: textbooks, cookbooks, art books, how-to books, memoirs and more.

Show us how you have creatively overcome challenges, resulting in a well-structured, easy-to-navigate, clear, and comprehensive guide for all users.

Stephen Ullstrom, coordinator 2025 ISC/SCI Ewart-Daveluy Indexing Award 

Heather Ebbs and Margaret de Boer

Conference Scholarship

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ISC/SCI is offering scholarships to three ISC/SCI members to help them attend the conference in Vancouver at the end of May. The scholarship will pay the two-day early-bird conference fee plus banquet ticket. You are eligible to apply if you meet both of these conditions:

  • You live at least 1000 km from Vancouver.
  • You will contribute to the conference by performing just one of these tasks (you choose the task):
    • Write an article about the conference.
    • Generate a list of five questions that can be asked of the general audience at the conference.
    • Help at the registration desk.

Preference will be given to new indexers, then those who have never attended a conference, then everyone else. See the Conference Scholarship form for more information and the application form. The deadline for applying is April 15, 2025.

Reminder of Submission Deadline: ISC/SCI Ewart-Daveluy Award for Excellence in Indexing 2025

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Submission deadline: Friday, March 14, 2025

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 benefits:

  • The winner will receive two tickets to the conference banquet at the next in-person conference.
  • We provide feedback for up to three runners-up.

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). And if not, you’re likely to get expert confidential feedback. That’s worth a lot.

This year you can submit indexes published in 2023 and 2024. 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 14, 2025. Please see the Ewart-Daveluy Award page for guidelines, criteria, and the submission form.