At PI, we specialize in team projects. Whether it’s collaboration among the partners on business matters or a larger project involving associates, like our embedded indexing work for O’Reilly Media, collaboration comes up in some form in everything we do. Benefits of collaboration Working together has obvious benefits, like sharing the workload to meet tight […]
Occupational Hazards
Most of us who spend lots of hours at the computer as a way of earning our living likely don’t think of our jobs as having occupational hazards, but we really do have them. They may not be as blatantly obvious as in other occupations—e.g. construction, or farming. If you are not aware of hazards, […]
Publishing Client Schedule Uncertainties
In the almost-thirty years I’ve been indexing and editing, many changes have occurred in the publishing industry, but the one that affects me the most on a weekly basis is the floating calendar. In spite of (or perhaps because of) fancy book design software and instant emailing of manuscript copy, the timeline for publishing books […]
Yoga for the Indexer
…or editor, or proofreader, or anyone who does most or all of their work in a sitting position. There was a lot serious continuing education at the American Society for Indexing’s 2018 conference, like software exploration, specialty indexing, controlled vocabulary, and indexing music sessions. There was also a session that still applies today entitled “Kinks […]
Indexing Time: The Mental Challenge
I’ve noticed that book indexing can be a challenging mental task, and it’s easy to underestimate how much productive time one can spend on it. We usually schedule a couple of weeks to get an indexing project done, but a lot of that is just juggling multiple deadlines. So, how long does it really take […]
Indexing Multi-Author Works
Indexing multi-author works can be a real challenge. Vocabulary control, adjusting to different writing styles, and structural decisions are all concerns. The most important thing when working on a multi-author work, whether a book of essays or a collection of previously published articles, is to make sure you have a single decision maker. This can […]
