Introduction to Indexing (page 1-15)

Index

An orderly guide to the intellectual content and physical location of knowledge records. It acts as a pointer or guide, employing a set of tags or descriptors that earmark the source of information the user is searching for.

Word and Name Indexes (Concordances)

Indexes to the individual names and words that the author used in the manuscript.

Corporate Author Index

A type of name index used when the approach to an information search is by the corporate author (e.g., a corporation, a foundation, or a university).

Book Indexes

A large category of indexes, typically a list of words, generally alphabetical, found at the back of a book, giving a page location for the subject or name associated with each word.

Periodical Indexes

Indexes based on the same general principles as book indexes, but with a broader scope; they are open-ended projects that bring order to the divergence of topics, authors, and styles found across many journal issues.

Information Retrieval (IR)

The selective, systematic recall of logically stored information. While it doesn't strictly require technology, general usage implies the use of electronic computing machines.

Author Indexes

Indexes whose entry points are people, organizations, corporate authors, government agencies, universities, and the like, guiding users to document titles by way of authors.

Alphabetical Index

An index arranged according to the orderly principles of the letters of the alphabet, used for the arrangement of subject headings, cross-references, and main headings, with all entry items typically in one alphabetical order.

American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII)

A standard computer code system where numbers, letters, and special characters are arranged in order and assigned numerical binary values, used to base computer filing rules.

Letter by Letter (Alphabetizing)

A mechanistic approach to alphabetizing that ignores the blanks between words, visualizing a string of letters and then ordering these strings.

Word by Word (Alphabetizing)

A method where all items starting with one word are ordered before items starting with a second word are considered.

Classified Indexes

Indexes arranged in a hierarchy of related topics, starting with generic topics and working down to the specific.

Coordinate Indexes

Indexes created by combining two or more single index terms to form a new class, which are basically Boolean models for searching (logical product of the terms).

Post coordinate indexing methods (Manipulative Indexes)

Indexing where coordination (combining terms) is done by the user at the searching stage, typically by combining terms with Boolean operators to form a search strategy.

Precoordinate Indexes (Nonmanipulative indexes)

Indexing where coordination is done by the indexer at the indexing stage. This is necessary in traditional printed indexes, as the printed page is final and prevents manipulation.

Permuted Title Indexes

Indexes based on the premise that titles effectively indicate the content of documents, created by systematically rotating information-conveying words in the title as subject entry points.

KWIC (Key Word In Context) index

A popular type of permuted title index, presented as an alphabetical list ordered on each subject-conveying word in the title, displayed within the context of the surrounding words.

KWOC (Key Word Out of Context) index

A popular type of permuted title index that does not rotate the title, but lifts out the keyword of interest and lists it separately to the side of the title.