Earlier today, I solicited comments about the value of book indexes. The responses were overwhelming: readers like them! Here are a smattering of the emails: Regarding book indexes, I still use them, ...

Almost all books come with indexes in the back. These sections identify the most frequently-used words in the book, and list the pages those words appear on. Authors (generally) do not create these ...

Q: I am interested in creating an index for a book proposal as well as a book. Is there a program designed specifically for writers and researchers doing this sort of work? A: There are several ways ...

Lisa Fedorak was looking through a book about the novelist Carol Shields when she came across a phrase that made her pause. The author of the book was explaining how novelists often use an “orgasmic ...

I always find myself in the index. Not in the traditional sense, of course; not under D. But just in the index, rooting around, reading across the text, hunting, tracking, losing threads and making ...

Book indexes might seem the perfect candidate for AI automation. They’re not. Last autumn, I received an entirely unexpected invitation to become the Honorary President of the Society of Indexers. The ...

Index, A History of the. By Dennis Duncan. Allen Lane; 352 pages; £20. To be published in America by W.W. Norton in February; $30 PRODUCING AN INDEX is like squeezing “a grape in a winepress”, wrote a ...