ANZSI Courses
ANZSI runs training courses from time to time. These may include introductory indexing courses, or workshops on indexing specific materials or topics.
In addition, professional development sessions for members are held via video-conference.
For information please contact the ANZSI Education Officer.
Background information
Indexing books as a career is a free course (massively open online course – MOOC) provided by Sylvia Coates Indexing Services. It provides an introduction to the process of indexing and working as an indexer, but it is not a substitute for a comprehensive indexing training course and will not prepare anyone to work as a professional indexer. Instead, it is intended to educate editors, authors, and other interested parties about indexing and working as an indexer, and to help people assess whether or not an indexing career might be right for them.
Professional training courses
The following organisations offer indexing training online.
Society of Indexers (UK)
The Society of Indexers (SI) has written and administers a training course based on the principle of open learning. Units, tutorial support and formal tests are all available separately, so that you can learn in your own way and at your own pace. The course ‘provides a grounding in the basic principles of indexing needed to produce useful, well-structured indexes. Analytical indexing skills are essential to identify concepts and to create entries which direct users effectively and efficiently to the most useful and appropriate content in a text.’
SI also offers a range of workshops including online workshops which enable individual study at a time to students.
American Society for Indexing
The American Society for Indexing (ASI) training course is adapted under licence from the Society of Indexers’ prestigious and well-established distance-learning course. ‘Distance learners will be able to explore indexing and how to index via four self-study modules that are accessed online from a secure Training Course Website.’
You must be an ASI member to take the ASI Training Course.
ASI has a list of various other indexing courses and workshops.
ASI also presents webinars; access and downloads are available to ANZSI members at ASI member rates. Please consult the ASI Webinars page.
Some ASI Special Interest Groups (SIGs) also run webinars. ANZSI members may join ASI SIGs.
University of California Berkeley
University of California Berkeley’s Indexing: Theory and Application (distance learning course). ‘Learn the fundamentals of writing, editing and delivering back-of-book indexes to publishing clients. You also learn the basic formats, guidelines and term-selection approaches of embedded and Web indexing using three major indexing software programs to complete several assignments.’ Course syllabus. (Note: Members of ANZSI are able to borrow the textbooks for this course from the ANZSI Library).
- Globalization and the indexer: reflections from the UC Berkeley Extension course: by Sylvia Coates, Heather Ebbs and Max McMaster, The Indexer, 2011, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 31–33
- Teaching indexing, by Lucie Haskins, in: Enid L Zafran (ed) Index it right! Advice from the experts, volume 3, Tempe, AZ: American Society for Indexing, 2014, pp. 181-192