Indexing Specialities: Law

The 13 chapters of this book make a persuasive case for the art of the legal indexer. A contribution by Charles Knapp on indexing court cases, one of many concise and clearly written chapters, demonstrates a succinct and well thought out approach to indexing that is characteristic of the book. He begins with the statement that indexing is easy. Provided that is, the indexer keeps in mind the need to emphasise what is important and includes enough detail to show relevance. Provided also, that the indexer does not work in the dark. These principles have been carried over into the writing of the book.

All the chapters contributed do indeed emphasise what is important, keeping a useful and practical focus on the business of creating good indexes. Chapters are included on indexing and tabling legal cases, on dealing with statutory materials and on new technologies and methodologies. A section on getting started includes chapters on hiring and training indexers, tips on selecting key terms and on resources for legal indexers. There are many useful examples to along the way, making available, like a good index, a useful level of detail. A number of chapters provide specific examples to accompany advice on the creation of headings and subheadings, on double posting, and on cross referencing.

The good advice that indexers should not work in the dark is underlined by contributors who stress the importance of understanding the audience for a work. Mauri Baggiano for example, notes that casebooks should be indexed for both the new student and the law professor. More than one contributor also notes the usefulness of experience in legal reference work as a guide to the way people phrase their questions (if people want to know about the “Lemon law”, make an entry for it!). Not working in the dark, means, above all, that the indexer must acquire, or have access to, the legal knowledge to understand the text they are working with. The challenge of the text provides much of the challenge and interest for these indexers.

It is also clear from the reflections on legal indexing that close the book, and from Linda Alpert’s chapter on starting a freelance indexing career, that there is a genuine sense of vocation underlying the work of the contributors included. In his introduction Peter Kendrick notes that many indexers:

… serve their users as a matter of conviction … most dedicated indexers honor their ideals one index entry at a time without drawing much attention to themselves, and often, without feeling the gratitude of the people they serve.

The suspicion grows in fact, that not many legal authors deserve the attention of indexers like these, with their concern to open out and clarify the detail of a book for its potential audience.

There is a gulf though between the culture of the legal index and the culture of keyword searching that dominates the use of full text databases and the internet. Maryann Corbett emphasises the importance of agitating for the incorporation of indexes into databases of statutory law for example, where the inadequacies of keyword searching are particularly well exposed. An interview with Leslie Denton of Lexis Publishing however, and a chapter on automatic topical indexing at LexisNexis, demonstrate ways in which the gulf between index and keyword approaches can be bridged. Here indexers provide the subject headings which are then used in the automatic generation of index entries. Relevance ranking of the entries (again automatic), suggests the likely value of the links created. In this way subject indexing is introduced to databases which are too large to be indexed by conventional means (at least economically).

In summary, the Indexing Specialities series aims to provide continuing education for indexers and help for those wishing to learn the fine points of indexing in particular fields. This the volume achieves. A review of a book on indexing should not end though without a mention of the book’s own index. In this case, efficiently constructed. The treatment of web addresses as names left we wondering though. Would anyone go to the end of an index for entries starting “www” to find a Web address?