I teach website indexing, and am asked about work opportunities in web and electronic indexing. This is my attempt to capture my experience of the state of the field.
The ASI Web Indexing SIG recently surveyed its members and changed its name to Web & Electronic Indexing SIG to encompass the broader area of electronic indexing (http://www.web-indexing.org/webindexingsurveyresults.pdf). People who want to make a living doing web indexing will have to be flexible and take work of different types.
Web indexing includes, or has included:
- categorical organisation of websites, eg, in Yahoo and Google directories
- creation of A to Z indexes for individual websites or for a group of websites
- creation of metadata to enhance search, and/or to be used in a browsable index
This work can be supplemented by the creation of thesauruses and taxonomies.
The broader conceptualisation of web and electronic indexing also includes work such as embedded indexing and XML tagging.
My experience with this kind of work is that it is unpredictable and varied, but that organisations can become long-term clients with ongoing needs. Organisations I have been involved with include:
- EventsOnline – where I created a website index (using HTML Indexer) for a collection of audio tapes
- NRMA – where I worked one day per week for years indexing online Help for customer service staff
- Austrade (www.austrade.gov.au) – where I have worked on a taxonomy; a thesaurus that works behind the scenes to influence search, especially in cases where no hits are retrieved; and a classification for organisation of documents in SharePoint.
- National Prescribing Service (www.nps.org.au) – where I have worked on the selection of metadata (in MS-Access) and creation of a thesaurus (in MultiTes) for site organisation and search enhancement; on a mini-project to create an A to Z list of key topics and their synonyms (in MySource Matrix content management system); and on evaluation of an externally produced hierarchy for use in the information architecture of the site.
- Dictionary of Sydney (www.dictionaryofsydney.org) – where I have consulted on term selection and relationships (sometimes using PostIt notes and a big whiteboard).
- Australian Native Plants Garden Design Study Group (http://anpsa.org.au/design/GDSGnews.html) – where my A to Z index to the newsletter (created using SKY Index, with manipulation in MS-Word) is also available on the web, linked to the PDFs of the journal.
- CARPA (Central Australian Rural Practitioners Association Inc.) – where I consulted on the conversion of paper-based indexes to 5 related books to a combined web-based index.
- Elsevier – where I created an XML-embedded index using XMetal.
- Cambridge University Press – where creation of the index to The Indexing Companion involved embedded indexing, although my part was done in SKY Index and on paper.
- LIXI (Lending Industry XML Initiative) – where I worked on a Glossary (using PageSeeder software – www.weborganic.com) ensuring that it was understandable to people who were not subject experts
- Primary Connections – where I created metadata in PDFs of curriculum documents.
At Austrade, NPS and Dictionary of Sydney I worked with people I knew through my online Help indexing job at NRMA. In my experience networking is crucial in finding work in this area.
The skills needed in metadata creation and thesaurus construction are related to those needed in database indexing, while those needed in the creation of A to Z indexes are based on book indexing skills. In addition, indexers need to become familiar with new technology, and need a good idea of the available options to be able to recommend the best approaches. In many cases there is legacy data (large amounts of pre-existing data in old formats) which may need to be converted.
So, to answer the question ‘Is there work in web and electronic indexing’, the answer is ‘Yes’, but:
- you will have to keep up-to-date with developments in the field, and will have to be willing to quickly learn new software as required
- you will have to network widely, and will often be competing for work with professionals in related fields (eg, information architecture)
- you will often be working in teams with editors and computer professionals.
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