The American Society for Indexing held its 2022 Virtual Conference, “The Future of Indexing: A Mix of Art and Technology,” on Friday, April 29, 2022 and Saturday, April 30, 2022. Four sessions were held virtually on Zoom each day.
In the second session on Friday, keynote speaker Joshua Tallent presented Where Do You Fit? The Art of Indexing in the Age of Automation. He discussed how the publishing industry is changing, the challenges that indexers continue to face, and the opportunities that are likely to present themselves in the future.
He focused on the history of the publishing process and gave his thoughts on process and workflow. He touched on print on demand and discussed eBooks, saying that changes are on the horizon, particularly with accessibility. He said that eBooks haven’t evolved that much in the last nine years. Footnotes in eBooks now pop up, and indexes in eBooks have page number linking. He said that print books, which are very durable and effective, are not going away. Back-of-the-book indexes are the most effective way to find content in nonfiction books. We can continue making them relevant.
Indexes can be adapted with changes in technology and created with more efficient processes. He suggested that audiobooks need a way to index content. Publishers need keywords for book discovery and book sales in a metadata creation process. More than 30 keywords signify higher average sales. Indexers have the unique skills to provide these list of keywords, he said.
“Being able to adapt is more important than being able to predict,” he said.
In the next blog posting I will discuss the third Friday session of the ASI 2022 Virtual Conference. For more information about the services provided by the author of this blog, see the Stellar Searches LLC website, http://www.stellarsearches.com.