From: SMTP%"@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU:LISTSERV@BINGVMB.BITNET" 15-JAN-1995 19:55:28.67 To: SOLIBJA CC: Subj: File: "INDEX-L LOG9411E" Date: Sun, 15 Jan 1995 19:53:39 +0000 From: BITNET list server at BINGVMB (1.8a) Subject: File: "INDEX-L LOG9411E" To: Julius Ariail ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 15:18:36 ECT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Jonathan Jermey Subject: Quoting summary of replies ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- A few months ago I posted a question to the net about quoting for indexing work (for a paper at the conference in Australia next year) and promised to summarise the replies for everyone to read. Since someone has just asked a question about pricing for beginner indexers, this seemed a good time to do so. I recieved four replies; three from freelancers in the US, and one from a manager of database indexing in Australia. This one will be summarised separately at the end. Question 1. Do you charge the rate recommended by the relevant indexing society, or more, or less? AUSSI (the Australian Society of Indexers) sets a recommended minimum rate for indexing. It is currently A$32.50, and is regularly reviewed. One of my repliers said that ASI does not set a rate; another that she thought it recommended $20-40. Indexers discuss rates with colleagues (when they are willing to discuss them). -Writer's Market-, Nancy Mulvaney's new book (-Indexing Books-) and an article some years ago in ASI's Keynotes were recommended. People charged more for subjects in which they had expertise (e.g. US$25 per hour rather than US$20 per hour); others charged more for publishers who were more able to pay (e.g. US$30 per hour for corporate clients (and hoping for US$40 per hour) compared with US$20 per hour for an academic publisher). Another indexer mentioned a base rate of US$3.50 per indexable page. One indexer did not charge more for using Macrex or Cindex (but if based on a per page rate, use of Macrex would result in a higher hourly rate). Another did not use specialised software, but thought that by using such software you would be able to complete more indexes in a given time, and make more money that way. Question 2. Do you give a set quote before starting to work, and if so how do you decide what to charge? If not, do you give a quote based on number of locators, or some other outcome? One indexer had a minimum rate for different charging mechanisms (per hour, per page, per record), and offered the client a choice. She prefers hourly rates, and usually throws in a "not to exceed" clause. All her rates are negotiable depending on the material; phone quotes are subject to revision when she sees the material. She will also accept a flat rate if there is a way to accurately assess the work involved [in a way a per page rate becomes a flat rate per job?] Another indexer charges by the hour, and keeps a chart on her desk so she can give an estimate of the time a new job will take. The estimate is always a range. The third indexer charges by the indexable page, with a sliding scale from a Base of US$3.50 per indexable page. This goes up for technical material, where she has specialised knowledge, foreign languages, extremely short turnaround time, etc. Question 3. Do you ever accept a lower fee than your original quote after starting work. One indexer has just done this, for a book she particularly wanted to work on, but would not make a practice of it. She tries to refer work to newcomers who are willing to take a lower fee for the chance to get experience. Another indexer replies: "Rates are negotiable up to the point that the contract (formal or letter of agreement) is signed. After that, I'll fight to the death to get what the client agreed to." Another accepts lower fees at times. University presses sometimes have fascinating projects, but little money. She tries to make it up with higher fees from commercial publishers, legal publishers and richer publishers. Question 4. Have you ever had to increase a quote after starting work? One indexer gave two examples, both due to insufficient info about the book (sample chapter not available before starting the job). One was an anthology, with 20 authors using different vocabularies. The other involved fixing the author's index, which needed more work than expected. Another indexer had had to increase a quote for all the reasons I offered as examples. In one example the number of entries were 10 times what she had expected, and a per entry charge was renegotiated. The third indexer has renegotiated the fee if extra work is requested (e.g. two indexes instead of one), or if an author rewrites part of the book. She has not increased her fee when a book has turned out to be different to what she was told, but thinks it is a good idea. She is now working on a book that contains much more indexable material than she was led to believe. From that she has also decided that she should see the whole book before taking on a job. Question 5. Is the freelance rate for database or journal indexing comparable to the one for book indexing? "My minimum fees are the same; but I'll almost always insist on an hourly rate or per-entry rate for journal indexes; there is simply too much variation between issues re length and percentage of non-indexable material to accept a page rate." The fourth reply I received was from the manager of indexing for AMI (Australasian Medical Index; the Australian supplement to Medline) and APAIS (Australian Public Affairs Information Service). They employ contract indexers, paid on a per item rate. This rate is based on the casual Professional Officer grade 2 rate in the Australian Public Service (this was previously a Librarian 2 position), and is adjusted when public service pay rates increase. It was assumed that indexers can index four items (e.g. journal articles) per hour, so they are paid $5.80 per item to give a rate of $23.20 per hour. For AMI the work involves allocating MeSH headings (Medical Subject Headings) and writing an abstract if there isn't one in the journal. For APAIS the subject indexing is simpler and no abstracts are written, but complex name authority checking is involved. I hope that this summary is of interest to you all, and that I have accurately shown the views of the people who responded. The replies I recieved often made me think "Yes, thats just what I do" or "What a good idea", so it has been really interesting for me. Thankyou again for taking the time to respond. If anyone else is inspired by this to make a contribution, I would be interested to hear all your comments up to late March next year. General ideas, and specific comments about rates and examples are both welcome. Glenda Browne. Jonathan Jermey & Glenda Browne Blaxland NSW (047) 398-199 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 15:18:57 ECT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Dwight Walker Subject: Re: Indexing programs? ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >We would appreciate any comments about available software to assist in >compiling indexes for books and periodicals. We know of Cindex from the US >and Macrex from the UK --and would welcome comments from users about both >programs' strengths and shortcomings-- but we wonder if there are other >options. Specifically, is there any indexing program for the Macintosh >platform? > >Thank you for any assistance and best regards from Barcelona. > >--Albert Cuesta > Thesaurus Serveis Documentals > [acuesta@bix.com] > Hi There is one called INDEX4 for MS-DOS - public domain indexing software. It is available through the Australian Society of Indexers. I used it for a large periodical project. It has primitive user interface which can be tamed with a menu builder for your mouse. It has poor text editing facilities so I edited the raw data with a wordprocessor and let it sort the lines into order. The manual is on disk. Contact me if you want a demo copy - a few dollars to cover costs. Dwight Walker ================================================================== Dwight Walker dwalker@ozemail.com.au 2/1 Nelson St, Randwick NSW Australia 2031 +61-2-3986726 (h) +61-2-4393750 (w) Wed-Fri ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 13:57:28 ECT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: Charlotte Skuster Subject: FAQ--no changes since last ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- INDEX-L FAQ Contents: 1. Index-l procedures 2. Archives 3. Books on indexing 4. What has been written about automatic indexing? 5. What software do indexers use? 6. Courses or training for indexers (outside of library schools)? 7. Professional societies/organizations for indexers? 8. Network connections 9. Winners of the ASI/H.W. Wilson Company Award for Indexing 1. INDEX-L PROCEDURES There are three addresses you need to use for interaction with index-l: To take part in a discussion or send a message to the list (a.k.a. group or subscribers), address your e-mail to Index- l@bingvmb.bitnet or index-l@bingvmb.cc.binghamton.edu To send a message directly to the moderator (a.k.a. Charlotte), address your e-mail to Skuster@bingvmb.bitnet or Skuster@bingvmb.cc.binghamton.edu To send a command to the listserv, address your e-mail to listserv@bingvmb.bitnet or listserv@bingvmb.cc.binghamton.edu. As subscribers, you are able to send commands to the listserv to see the archives, see a list of subscribers, stop your mail for a while, or a number of other options. To get a list of listserv commands and what they do, send the following message to the listserv: INFO REFCARD Do not sign your name or put anything else in the message. 2. ARCHIVES There are two ways to look at the archives: ---Received directly from the listserv@bingvmb Send the following message to the listserv: index index-l. You will receive a list of available archives--monthly, for those prior to June 1994 and weekly thereafter. When you decide what you would like to see, send the following message to the listserv: get log9406B (for the second week in June, for example) ---On the library gopher at Georgia Southern University: Messages are stored here from the start of the listserv in 1992 through July 1994. A WAIS searching program is available to searchthrough all years at once or through a selected year. The GSU gopher is located through a gopher client at informer.cc.gasou.edu or by telnet to gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu, login info. When you reach the gopher take this directory path: /Georgia Southern University/Henderson Library/Assistance to Professional.../Index-L 3. BOOKS ON INDEXING? Bonura, L. The Art of Indexing. Wiley, 1994 Knight, G. N. Indexing, The Art Of. Allen & Unwin, 1979. Lancaster, F. W. Indexing and Abstracting in Theory and Practice. U of Illinois Press, 1991. Lancaster, F. W. Vocabulary Control for Information Retrieval, 2nd ed. Information resources Press, 1986 Mulvany, Nancy C. Indexing Books, University of Chicago Press, 1994. Wellisch, H. Indexing and Abstracting, an International Bibliography ABC-Clio, 1980. Wellisch, H. Indexing from A to Z. H. W. Wilson, 1991. 4. WHAT HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT AUTOMATIC INDEXING? Books: Grefenstette, G. Explorations in Automatic Thesaurus Discovery, Kluwer, 1994 Salton and McGill Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval Salton, Automatic Text Processing Van Rijsbergen Information Retrieval Jones, Karen Spark Information Retrieval Experiment Papers: Bell, C. and Jones, K. "Back-of-the-book Indexing: A Case for the Application of Artificial Intelligence", Informatics 5, ASLIB Pub., pp. 155-161, 1979 Bennion, B. "Performance Testing of a Book and its Index as an Information Retrieval System", JASIS, pp. 265-270, July 1970 Borko, H. "Experiments in Book Indexing by Computer" Information Storage and Retrieval, 6:5)16, 1970 Dillon, M. and McDonald, J. "Fully Automatic Book Indexing" Journal of Documentation 39(1):135-154, 1983 Dion, M. Thesaurus-Based Automatic Book Indexing", Information Processing and Management, 81(4):167-178, 1982 Salton, G. "Syntactic Approaches to Automatic Book Indexing", Proceedings of the 26th ACL, pp. 204-210, 1988 5. WHAT SOFTWARE DO INDEXERS USE? (All of these are for DOS machines...no Macs) IN>SORT Kensa Software P.O. Box 4415 Northbrook, IL 60065 (708) 559-0297 Macrex Bayside Indexing Service P.O. Box 3051 Daly City, CA 95015-0051 (415) 756-0821 FAX: (415) 757-1567 Cindex Indexing Research Box 18609 Rochester, New (716) 461-5530 FAX: (716) 442-3924 6. COURSES OR TRAINING FOR INDEXERS (OUTSIDE OF LIBRARY SCHOOLS)? Graduate School of the USDA Correspondence Programs, Ag Box 9911 Room 1114, South Agriculture Building 14th St. and Independence Ave. SW Washington, DC 20250 (202) 720-7123 TDD: (202) 690-1516 Tuition: (includes all materials) $281,00--Basic Indexing (beginning) $275.00--Applied Indexing (more advanced) 7. PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES/ORGANIZATIONS FOR INDEXERS? (this question was not actually asked..but here's the answer anyway) American Society of Indexers (ASI) P.O. Box 386 Port Aransas TX 78373 (512) 749-4052 FAX: (512) 749-6334 E-Mail: asi@well.sf.ca.us Indexing and Abstracting Society of Canada Box 744 Station F Toronto Ontario Canada M4Y 2N6 National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS) 1518 Walnut Street Suite 307 Philadelphia PA 19102-3403 (215) 893-1561 FAX: (215) 893-1564 E-MAIL: nfais@hslc.org Society of Indexers (SI) 16 Green Road Birchington, England CT79JZ Australian Society of Indexers (AusSI) GPO Box 1251L, Melbourne Victoria 3001, Australia 8. NETWORK CONNECTIONS America Online (800) 227-6364 CompuServe (800) 848-8199 Delphi (800) 495-4005 GEnie (800) 638-9636 The Well (415) 332-4335 Real/Time Communications (512) 459-4391 See also. Maren, M. "The Age of E-Mail. Home Office Computing, December, 1993, 63-70. Tetzeli, R. "Is Going On-line Worth the Money?" FORTUNE 129(12):104-105, 108. June 13, 1994. 9. WINNERS OF THE ASI/H.W. WILSON COMPANY AWARD FOR INDEXING 1979--Hans H. Wellisch, author and indexer; John Wiley, publisher: The Conversion of Scripts: Its Nature, History and Utilization 1980--Linda I. Solow, indexer; M.I.T. Press, publisher: Beyond Orpheus:Studies in Musical Structures. 1981--Delight Ansley, indexer; Random House Publisher: Cosmos by Carl Sagan, 1982--Catherine Fix, indexer; Wm. Saunders Company, publisher: Diagnosis of Bone and Joint Disorders. 1983--Award not given. 1984--Trish Yancey, indexer; Information Handling Services, publisher: Index and Directory of U.S. Industry Standards 1985--Sydney W. Cohen, indexer; Random House, publisher: The Experts Speak by Cerf and Navasky. 1986--Marjorie Hyslop, indexer; American Society for Metals, publisher: Metals Handbook. 1987--Award not given. 1988--Jeanne Moody, indexer; National Wildlife Institute, publisher: Raptor Management Techniques. 1989--Philip James, indexer; Butterworths, publisher: Medicine for the Practicing Physician, 2nd ed.. 1990--Marcia Carlson, indexer; Cornell University Press, publisher: Strategic Nuclear Arms & Arms Control Debates. 1991--Daniels, Nancy L., indexer; Van Nostrand Reinhold, publisher:Beyond Public Architecture: Strategies for Design Evaluation. 1992--Johnson, Rachel Jo., indexer; Matthew Bender, publisher: American Law of Real Property. 1993--Award not given. 1994--Deminna, Patricia, indexer; U. of California, publisher: Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture by Daniel Boyarin