vivdunstan

Looking at an academic textbook I bought so I could access it quickly. "Yup, this will be useful!" And grateful for its fairly extensive index, which is much more detailed and useful than the index for a related 1970s textbook Martin borrowed for me from the uni library (I have staff borrowing rights too, but he was on the spot!). Which pretty much just indexes names. As an academic I'm expected to read textbooks as needed. Unfortunately it's a huge problem with my progressive neurological disease and has been for 25+ years now, inc during my history taught MPhil and PhD. So I'm extremely grateful for anything that can help narrow it down. Including a good index!

And that's stage 2 of the book chapter indexing completed. Sitting at 100 lines in my text file. Multiple page refs to same thing merged into single lines (inc a few hefty page ranges for chapter core subjects). But that's enough for now. Will finish tomorrow (checking, editing, reordering & formatting). The full chapter I'm indexing is 16 pages long in proofs, mostly a transcript of a 1682 historical poem. Because that poem mentions an awful lot of historical people and events, it needs surprisingly hefty indexing. I believe my index will be combined with other chapter writers? (not ideal, but ...) Indexing has been fun, though I'm not 100% sure whether I should have included an entry for "Meg 'the Marling'" with no surname known. But generally taking over inclusive approach rather than under indexing! I did train and qualify as a book indexer long ago, before realising my progressive illness was already too advanced.

Been doing some last minute indexing of a piece coming soon in a Scottish History Society Miscellany book volume. And reminded again just how much I adore this historical poem about events at the Melrose local court in 1682!

First task of the indexing completed, with numerous candidate index references highlighted in the page proofs. Will type up and edit down later this week.

I researched this local court and its cases as part of my taught MPhil history dissertation 20+ years ago. Only after finishing my degree did I discover this amazing historical poem about the court and its very unpopular new judge. I am so happy to have been able to write and publish an annotated transcript of the poem along with an introductory explanatory essay.

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Entries tagged with indexing

Academic textbooks and indexes

Indexing 2/3 done

Indexing

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October 2025

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