Darkly dreaming indexer
... okay, with that subject line I'm trying to pun off the book title Darkly Dreaming Dexter, but A) it's a mediocre pun and B) I didn't like the book. Great concept (serial killer on the Side of Good is our hero), unsatisfying execution. In my defense, A) it's hard to pun off the word "index," I'd jolly well like to see you do better, and B) my brain hurts.
My brain hurts because I've been consumed by my subject index. I am in Subject Index hell. I mean that. I am in hell. There is plenty of evidence to back me up here. To say nothing of the agony and misery, etc., the temperatures are exceedingly warm (mid-90s today) and there is gnashing of teeth.
When I am stressed, I grind my teeth in my sleep. I'm not aware of its happening at the time, obviously, what with being asleep and all, but I can tell by the ache in my jaw the next morning that my teeth have been committing a very slow form of suicide. Toothicide? Dentricide?
As recently as, say, eight weeks ago, I was blissfully unaware of the exquisite torture of indexing. I am ashamed, now, that I have never before admired the beauty of a well-prepared index. Henceforth I shall pay special attention to the quality of a book's index, reserving the right to scorn any index that is not as good as, say, mine.
I would treat you to a painfully detailed explanation of subject indexing so that you could begin to appreciate the magnificent product I am creating, but unfortunately the magnificent product is due in a few weeks and I cannot realistically see myself finishing before November or so. I am not quite sure how to reconcile this gaping time disparity, but a likely first step is to not waste any more time blogging till it gets done.
And have I mentioned the title/author index? The entries are all in place. All that remains is to drop in the page numbers-- but with 3,526 entries, assuming an optimistic ten seconds per entry, we're looking at 9.79 hours.
Right. So no more blogging for a little while. Also no more laundry (which sucks), but also no more vacuuming (yay!) and no more fussing about with food preparation, which as I interpret it means "Ice cream for dinner every night!"
the lesbrarian
6 Comments
Reader Comments (6)
Are you doing something more stringent than stripping out the subjects listed in your annotations and using those as headings, or is your book structured a little differently than mine (annotation, subjects, now try)? Either way, just do the best you can and hit the big subjects and you'll be fine. Anything's an improvement over catalog subjects (and that's not a dig at catalogers--I know they've got a tough job).
I'm pulling for you. Keep your stick on the ice.
You are the only two people I know who understand this wretched process. Thank you for commiserating.
My book's structured the same as yours, CR, but A) I applied way more subject headings, which I see now was a horrible mistake, and consequently B) my index is a bit more complicated than yours. It's the cross-referencing that's killing me, really.