Advanced Search

Subject
An Accredited Indexer is generally able to create an index to documentation covering any subject at the level of trade books, material for the layperson, introductions to a subject, school textbooks, and first-year undergraduate texts.

For material aimed at an advanced or post-graduate audience, or assuming existing considerable knowledge of a subject, specialist subject knowledge or experience is an advantage.

A subject guide is provided in the right sidebar, that may assist with your choice of search terms. Each of the subject categories in our advanced search incorporate a range of specialisations.

Materials and formats
Although most indexers specialise in working with either print material or electronic databases, indexers index materials in a variety of formats.

Closed systems
Works whose indexes stand alone, referring to a single edition of one work, and for which the work being indexed determines the design of the index and the vocabulary chosen, include:
• Books (often called “back-of-book” indexing)
• Encyclopaedias
• Annual reports
• Technical reports
• Technical and other manuals and guidelines
• Graphic materials (images and pictures)
• CD-ROMs
• Cartographic material (maps and atlases)
• Multimedia
• E-books

Open systems
Works whose indexes are expected to grow and change over time, and for which the index’s design must be able to incorporate future changes and whose vocabulary may be carefully controlled, often imposed from without, include:
• Periodicals, journals, newsletters, magazines and other periodical publications
• Newspapers
• Loose-leaf services
• Directories
• Databases
• Archives
• Websites
• Metadata
• Libraries
• Collections of artefacts, graphic objects, sound recordings, etc

A guide to our controlled vocabulary is provided in the right sidebar, that may assist with your choice of search terms.