Jenny Browne – Page 3

National Indexing Day – South Australian Indexers

23 March, 2018 by Jenny Browne

ANZSI SA members celebrate National Indexing Day in the company of old colonists at the State Library of South Australia

ANZSI SA members L to R John Liddle, Jane Oliver (Convenor), Janet Wilkinson, Judy Richter, Silvia Muscardin in front of one of the Old Colonists mosaics and indexes at the State Library of South Australia.

In 1872 businessman Emanuel Solomon commissioned photographer Henry Jones to create ‘The Old Colonists Banquet Group’ of men. It commemorates a free banquet Solomon held at the Adelaide Town Hall on 28 December 1871 for fellow colonists ‘who date their arrival before 1841’.

Jones also began a mosaic of women, partly as a consolation to those who applied for tickets only to be told that the banquet was for ‘the Male Sex’. The ‘Group of Old Colonists’ women took Jones nine years to complete, and has since been celebrated as unique in the history of Australian photography.

These mosaics are two of several held by the State Library of South Australia and were accompanied by scant and error ridden indexes, especially the index to the women’s portraits. Over a number of years State Library staff have laboriously researched what they could of the arrival and life details of these 1,100+ faces and collected the data in spreadsheets. Metadata Coordinator and ANZSI member, Janet Wilkinson was tasked to convert the data captured in the spreadsheets into MARC catalogue records and later into finding grids (or indexes) that are now on display next to facsimiles of the mosaics on level one of the Spence Wing of the State Library of South Australia.

View the old colonists in more detail in the State Library’s catalogue: The men — the women.

News from Aotearoa/New Zealand

23 March, 2018 by Jenny Browne

Aotearoa/New Zealand Group

Some members of the Aotearoa/New Zealand Group met for lunch on the 15 March 2018 at the National Library café in Wellington. We are currently updating our Freelance Directory which we have not updated for a number of years. We intend to send this out with the media release about the National Indexing Day to all publishers in New Zealand. Our library is running well with another suggestion for a book purchase made at the meeting and all members present reported using the library in the last year. The group subscription of The Indexer is also proving of benefit to our members, most of whom would not be willing to take out an individual subscription.

Comments about the publishing industry in New Zealand included that there seem to be more academic books available, especially about New Zealand history, with some members having plenty of work from the university presses; however commercial publishers are finding it increasingly difficult to sell books when competing with online book depositories like Amazon; a big publisher in Auckland has moved their production to Australia; there seem to be quite a few indexers who are not a member of ANZSI working in New Zealand.

Everyone liked the café we met at and the general consensus was that a meeting earlier in the year was preferable to one at the end of the year when we are all busy. We propose to meet again next year around Feb/March.

ANZSI National Indexing Day 29 March 2018

16 February, 2018 by Jenny Browne

Posts

Media Release

The Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers (ANZSI) is excited to announce its first National Indexing Day on 29 March 2018.

The ANZSI National Indexing Day aims to create awareness of the importance of indexing and the enduring value human-created indexes provide, especially in this age of information overload. But not enough is known about this ‘little understood, mysterious but essential parts (sic) of publishing’.¹

Indexing is an intelligent undertaking that is not matched by any search function. A good index can be a work of art, and the indexer an artist. A good indexer is multi-talented (some of our members are also writers, editors and librarians!).

Indexes provide different access points to the information in the text. Readers can explore the book by subject, name, country, historical event and by issues and ideas and the overarching themes presented across the book, which a contents page alone cannot achieve. Indexes also allow readers to compare the type and breadth of information in books before deciding on a purchase.

Recently, the index from Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (Michael Wolff) was used to measure apparent power in the current U.S. presidential administration. In fact, the index in Fire and Fury reflects its book so well that national journalists are relying on it as they cover current U.S. politics.²

ANZSI is the professional society of indexers in the region. Our members provide indexing and metadata services for print and digital publications: books and ebooks (popular, academic and educational), databases, genealogies, geographical and pictorial publications, legal publications, magazines, journals and newspapers, bibliographies, subject gateways and websites.

People can follow our Facebook (@ANZSocietyIndexers) and Twitter (@ANZSI_indexers) profiles and our National Indexing Day hashtag (#indexdayANZSI) as we share more information in the lead up to celebrating this day.

More information about ANZSI and our National Indexing Day can be found at https://www.anzsi.org/.

Contact

Madeleine Davis: (president@anzsi.org)

Sherrey Quinn: (secretary@anzsi.org)

1. The Book Deal, Alan Rinzler, Every non-fiction book needs an index: Here’s why/

2. Determining the power centers of Trump’s White House — by appearances in ‘Fire and Fury’, Philip Bump. Comments by Pilar Wyman, Indexing News blog, 10 Jan 2018, http://www.wymanindexing.com.

Update On Promotional and Member Activities

The Working Group for the ANZSI campaign – Sherrey Quinn, Denene Cavanagh and Madeleine Davis have begun promotion activities in earnest. Artwork for the ANZSI website, social media – Facebook (@ANZSocietyIndexers) and Twitter (@ANZSI_indexers) – and print advertising has been finalised. So far, approximately 28 block advertisements have been placed in various newsletters and journals.

Activities planned for 29 March, or weeks preceding the date, include:

Canberra Region Indexers are having a photo taken in front of the public artwork by Keld Moseholm ‘On the staircase’, at the Gorman House arts precinct. The sculpture depicts four small men climbing a staircase, reading books. The sculpture has a philosophical aspect by reflecting on the effect of reading on the spirit.

Indexers SA are planning a photo shoot in front of the Old Colonials, a mosaic of early SA settlers, at the State Library of South Australia. Janet Wilkinson, who works at the Library, has prepared an index to the colonials featured in the mosaic and will also feature in the photo.

Melbourne Indexers are finalising a photo shoot in front of a giant index on the wall of the National Gallery of Victoria. Yes, the NGV has installed a giant version of the index to their Triennial Exhibition publication! The photo opportunity is being timed to coincide with the weekend of the Melbourne Art Book Fair, also at the NGV.

NSW Indexers are progressing with an ANZSI National Indexing Day wine labelling effort and are liaising re a group photo shoot at the City of Sydney Library – Customs House, Circular Quay location.

The Aotearoa/NZ Indexers Group has 15 members on our mailing list. The Group is hampered in having regular “get-togethers” because of the geographical spread of members (Auckland, Wellington and others) but Wellington members have at least a yearly meeting, with the next one being organised for March. The Group will also update its local Freelancers’ Directory in time for National Indexing Day.

In addition, Mary Coe and Madeleine Davis have been invited by the School of Information Studies, Charles Sturt University, to give a joint presentation to an online session for students undertaking the Metadata for Resource Discovery course , on or around 29 March. They have about 100 students and the session is recorded for those who cannot attend.

Similarly , Mary and Madeleine are hoping to give a face-to-face presentation to Sydney University of Technology, Information Technology students.

Gleebooks, in Blackheath, Blue Mountains, has agreed to a photo in front of their window displaying the ANZSI NID media release when it is available.

Finally, ANZSI has been invited to participate in a podcast about writer/indexers at the end of February, run by the Australian Writers Centre, The AWC has also welcomed the suggestion of a Q&A on indexing for their blog, at a later date.