Indexes Praised and Indexes Censured are extracted from Indexes Reviewed, a regular feature in The Indexer.

These extracts from reviews do not pretend to represent a complete survey of all reviews in journals and newspapers. We offer only a selection from quotations that members have sent in. Our reproduction of comments is not a stamp of approval from the Society of Indexers upon the reviewer’s assessment of an index.

Blackwell Science: Muscles, nerves and movement in human occupation, by B. Tyldesley and J. I. Grieve (2002, 280 pp, £24.99). Rev. by Jo Jackson, International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation, 10(4), April 2003.
The final test for a book of this kind is whether it is easy to navigate by using the index. The index clearly directs the reader to the relevant sections and is supported by a useful glossary.

Boydell: Letters and diaries of Kathleen Ferrier, ed. Christopher Fifield (346 pp, £25/$39.95). Rev. by Hilary Finch, BBC Music Magazine, January 2004.
Fifield’s collection is scrupulously edited . . . there are invaluable indexes of personalia, letters, works and venues.

Butterworth/Heinemann: Veterinary oncology, by K.A. Hahn, ed. S.P. Messonier (2002, 318 pp). Rev. by Mary K. Klein, Veterinary and Comparative Oncology, 1(3): 168.
. . . it is often difficult to find your subject as some items such as non-osteosarcoma bone tumours in dogs might not intuitively be looked for under ‘N’ in this alphabetized system. The text, however, is indexed well and with little difficulty readers should be able to find the information they are looking for.

Cambridge University Press: Correspondence of Charles Darwin (vols 11, 12 and 23), ed. Frederick Burkhardt et al. (1038, 694 and 695 pp, £65, £60 and £65 respectively). Rev. by Jim Endersby, Times Literary Supplement, 21 November 2004.
The index and extensive footnotes that accompany these volumes also allow readers to learn more about all kinds of obscure aspects of Victorian natural history. By starting with the index entries for ‘hothouse’, I found myself immersed for days in the minutiae of how much a Victorian greenhouse cost to build, where to buy iron ventilators and similar equipment, how exotic plants had to be packed for a five-hour cart journey to prevent frost damage, and how the structure of the Bird of Paradise flower, Strelitzia reginae, proves it to be bird-pollinated . . .

CIP: Critical survey of poetry, ed. Philip K. Jason (2002, 8 vols, 5029 pp, $475). Rev. by Mary Ann Carcich, School Library Journal, April 2003.
Critical Survey provides original critiques by single reviewers . . . and three indexes: geographical, categorized, subject – all useful aids to student understanding. The category index is particularly helpful: students can search by cultural identity, historical periods and literary movements, and poetic forms and themes. Poets’ names and poem titles are included in the subject index.

Faber: Collected poems of Ted Hughes, ed. Paul Keegan (1333 pp, £40). Rev. by Ruth Padel, Financial Times, 20 December 2004.
These 1,333 pages, beautifully collated and indexed, let you track what Ted Hughes did with his gift, which blazes even from the juvenilia.

Facet Publishing: Metadata applications and management, ed. G. E. Gorman (2003, 384 pp, £60). Rev. by Olwen Terris, Multimedia Information & Technology, 30(1), February 2004.
Managing and imposing structure on web resources is a daunting and exacting task which is inviting worldwide professional scrutiny and financial investment; for this reviewer, a traditional back-of-the-book index serves as a quick and efficient road into the debate.

Fourth Estate: How mumbo-jumbo conquered the world: a short history of modern delusions, by Francis Wheen (338 pp, £16.99). Rev. by Philip Hensher, The Spectator, 31 January 2004.
Like Francis Wheen’s other books, this one ends in a deliriously funny index, which is worth the cover price on its own. One entry:

Blair, Tony: claims descent from Abraham; defends secondary picketing; defends teaching of creationism; displays coathangers; emotional guy; explores Third Way; likes chocolate-cake recipe; sneers at market forces; takes mud-bath in Mexico; venerates Princess Diana; worships management gurus.

Or, on the other side of the political spectrum:

Thatcher, Margaret: chooses market-minded Archbishop; economic delusions; enjoys ‘electric baths’; quotes St Francis; quotes St Paul; revives Victorian values; sides with good against evil; supports terrorism; thinks the unthinkable.

Best of all, and something which tells you, as they say, where Wheen is coming from, is an entry for God:

Accepted by Newton; angered by feminists and gays; appoints American coal-owners; approves of laissez-faire economics; arrives in America; asked by Khomeini to cut off foreigners’ hands; believed to have created humans 10,000 years ago; could have made intelligent sponges; doesn’t foresee Princess Diana’s death; helps vacuum-cleaner saleswoman; interested in diets; offers investment advice; praised by Enron chairman; produces first self-help manual. . . .

The enchantingly funny index . . . and the book itself, make a serious point; anything worth saying should be susceptible to rational summary. Anything else is deeply suspect.

Rev. by Martin Ince, New Scientist, 27 March 2004.
Francis Wheen’s book has the index of the year. The entry ‘Blair, Tony: claims descent from Abraham, [page] 165’ gives the flavour.

Harassowitz Verlag (Wiesbaden, Germany): Erwin Panofsky: Korrespondenz 1937 bis 1949, ed. Dieter Wuttke (2003, 1391 pp, E180). Rev. by Horst Bredekamp, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 14/15 February 2004.
The editor’s foreword hints at the immense demands an edition of this type makes. The commentaries leave hardly a single gap, and the index of names and subjects is a work of art in itself. [Translation by Michael Robertson, who sent this item.]

Haworth Information Press: aspects of cataloging and classification, ed. Martin D. Joachim (2003, 604 pp). Rev. by J. H. Bowman, Library & Information Update, 3(3), March 2004.
Indexes to these Haworth special volumes vary considerably, but this is one of the good ones, being very full; in fact there is rather more duplication of entries than one would be entitled to expect. [A good thing, surely?]

Hutchinson: My life, by Bill Clinton (2004, 1024 pp, £25). Rev. by Boyd Tonkin, Independent, 2 July 2004.
So here’s some advice for public figures who would like their books to be read on publication, rather than just toted and cited. Remember to forget a proper index. Future scholars and students will curse you, with good reason. But your central arguments will run a lower risk of being drowned out by the sound of a legion of page-riffling pundits as they look up – let us say – ‘Lewinsky, Monica’, and take it from there. My Life, by the way, contains a truly magnificent index: 38 exemplary pages, with all the major topics minutely subdivided as well.

Iowa State Press: Prasse’s veterinary laboratory medicine: clinical pathology (4th edn) (2003, 473 pp, $49.99). Rev. by Julia E. Stickle, Veterinary Clinical Pathology, 32(4), 2003.
For optimal value as a reference, an extensive index for rapid location of information is beneficial. The index of this 4th edition, expanded by more than 250%, along with the basic outline format bodes well for its future value as a quick source of information for the practicing veterinarian.

Iowa State Press: Pathology of pet and aviary birds, by R. E. Schmidt, D. R. Reavill and D. N. Phalen (2003, 234 pp, $149.99). Rev. in Veterinary Pathology, 41, 199–200, 2004.
The index is very thorough, including broader subjects such as infectious diseases as well as specific diseases and pathogens.

Methodist Conference 2003, Conference Arrangements Committee: Methodism in Wales: a short history of the Wesley tradition, ed. Lionel Madden (2003, 137 pp, £6). Rev. in Methodist Recorder, 29 January 2004.
. . . the 137-page book also has a good index . . .

Microsoft Press: Easy Web graphics, by Julie Adair King (2001, 279 pp, $19.99). Rev. by Ginny Hudak-David, Technical Communication, 50(4), November 2003.
Her expertise shows in this book, with its nicely done index (including hot pink cross-references!).

Oxford University Press: Aulus Gellius: an Antonine scholar and his achievements (revised edn) (460 pp, £70). Rev. by Jane Lightfoot, Times Literary Supplement, 16 April 2004.
There are (in response to complaints from the first reviewers) new indices [sic] of Greek and Latin words, and of passages cited from Gellius and other authors; and, finally, the subject index is much improved, not least because Oxford University Press have used their customary system of subheadings, thus avoiding a rebarbative list of 101 undifferentiated entries on M. Terentius Varro. [Why does the reviewer apparently assume that OUP is alone in using subheadings?]

Palgrave Macmillan: Women writing modern fiction: a passion for ideas, by Janice Rossen (2003, 193 pp, £45). Rev. by Hazel K. Bell, Green Leaves (journal of the Barbara Pym Society), September 2004.
All authors and novels cited, and concepts, are traceable through the excellent index (by Janey Fisher) . . . . I feel sure that Pym would have approved the book and the index.

University of California Press: Becoming Marianne Moore: the early poems, 1907–1924, ed. Robin G. Schulze (504 pp, $50). Rev. by Fiona Green, Times Literary Supplement, 23 January 2004.
One of the joys of a full facsimile of Observations [included in this volume] is the index Moore prepared for her book. If you use it in the ordinary way to find a particular poem, you will meet some curiosities: not only such conventional reversals as ‘FISH, THE’, but ‘COUSINS, MY APISH’ and ‘GARDENING, INJUDICIOUS’. This is an index of subjects as well as titles, and you can use it to navigate the poems, following up references to ‘Texas’ or ‘toadyism’. Better still, read from top to bottom the index almost seems a poem itself, a catalogue equivalent in quirkiness and character to Moore’s verse. Just as alphabetical sequence will bring about unforeseen juxtapositions – Tolstoy, torso, tortoise, trivial (of marriage or parakeets), Trollope, trousers, truths – so in Moore’s verse unexpected felicities issue from the marriages between different species of language.

Wiltshire Buildings Record: Wiltshire town houses 1500–1900, by Pamela L. Slocombe (2001, 112 pp, £6). Rev. by Robert Currey and Bill Keir, Vernacular Architecture, 33, 2002.
It will be of immense value, not only to those studying buildings in Wiltshire, but also to others looking for parallels for features in townhouses elsewhere. To aid such comparative work, there is an admirably thorough index which covers the whole series of Wiltshire Records publications . . .