Re: Indexing Online Documentation

[Lori Lathrop <76620 -dot- 456 -at- COMPUSERVE -dot- COM>]

My apologies to all of you who are seeing the attached posting for the
second time.

After I received an "email to news gateway warning" message, I asked
Eric Ray if I needed to take some action.  He responded:

> Technical difficulty on our end--your message went to the List side of
> things but not to the Network news side. You might repost later today
> to get it to everyone.
> Sorry,

>-------- Forwarded Message --------

>Karen Kay (INTERNET:karenk -at- NETCOM -dot- COM) says:

>> I'm taking an *excellent* course at San Jose State on online
>> documentation. I'm learning so much! Anyway, tonight we were talking
>> about indexes for online help. I looked at the indexes for several
>> programs today, and they uniformly sucked.

>> Are professional indexers ever hired to index online help? And if not,
>> why not, if they are hired to index the book?

>Karen -- Brace yourself!  You've touched one of my hot buttons! :-)
>But wait ... although I could jump up on my little soapbox and give a
>lengthy diatribe on the many shortcomings I've seen in online indexes
>that were created by people who don't have the foggiest notion of how
>to apply good indexing skills to online documentation, I won't do that.
>(Aren't you glad?)

>Instead, I'll restrain my urge to pontificate.  (Bet you're *really*
>glad now, eh?)  I'll also restrain my urge to tell you all about my
>indexing services and the indexing workshops I teach.  I will, however,
>quote from an editorial by Carolyn McGovern (President of the American
>Society of Indexers) in the JAN/FEB issue of KeyWords; she says:

>        "... Increasing indexers' opportunities to learn and to
>        network are worthwhile objectives.  ASI has been revitalized
>        by the new local groups and the new job categories of people
>        who are turning up at our meetings.  No longer are we just
>        indexers, librarians, editors, and database producers.  We
>        are also technical writers, product developers, data searchers,
>        "cybrarians," "retrieval engineers," and information
>        specialists of many kinds.

>        The immediacy of our need to broaden our outlook to reach out
>        to other information organizations, to get the word out that
>        our skills are vital to the world of information, *right now*,
>        hit me very dramatically during the Golden Gate Chapter's
>        midwinter conference, "Indexing in the Information Age,"
>        January 21.

>        At this conference, we learned or were reminded that textbooks
>        are disappearing from classrooms at all levels.  Changing
>        teaching styles have brought a shift to teacher-gathered
>        materials from many sources, to more independent research,
>        to on-line sources.  We heard that the skills of trained
>        indexers are often not being used in CD-ROM products, that
>        where the links used to navigate in these reference sources
>        are given any thought, they are being created by product
>        developers, who may know little about the background, needs,
>        or search habits of their consumers.

>        Yet this knowledge is our stock in trade, and we need to
>        publicize this fact.  How can we do this? ....

>        ... We must communicate to more people that indexers can
>        select keywords and create organizational structures that
>        will make any kind of information more accessible."

>************************************************************************
>Lori Lathrop ----------> INTERNET:76620 -dot- 456 -at- compuserve -dot- com
>Lathrop Media Services, P.O. Box 808, Georgetown, CO 80444
>(Author of _An Indexer's Guide to the Internet_, published by the
>American Society of Indexers, P.O. Box 386, Port Aransas, TX 78383)
>************************************************************************