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.

Boydell and Brewer: The Quoit Brooch Style and Anglo-Saxon settlement, by Seichii Suzuki (2000, xiv + 218 pp, £50). Rev. by Barry M. Ager, Medieval Archaeology, XLV, 2001.
The abbreviation for 'Saint' in the index of objects, however, is seriously misplaced, as if the word begins 'St' (p. 212); the same index would be much more useful with page references to the text. [So what does it have instead?]

Boydell Press: Cathedral shrines of medieval England, by Ben Nilson (1998, 276 pp, £40). Rev. by John Crook, Medieval Archaeology, Vol. XLIII, 1999.
It is disappointing that (despite the acknowledged help of a research assistant and proof reader) a book of such potential should be spoiled by numerous mistakes…. It is not clear from the main text that Audoenus and Ouen are one and the same saint in Latin and French guise; the two are separately listed in the index…. The index contains spellings such as 'Litchfield' and 'jewellry' among other errors.

British Library: The British Library catalogue of additions to the manuscripts: the G.K. Chesterton papers, ed. by Richard Christophers (283 pp, £50). Rev. by Stephen Medcalf, Times Literary Supplement, 7 Dec 2001.
The two indices 'General' and 'Title', making a great effort at completeness, sometimes fall back defeated. The whole of an alliterative fragment on W. P. Ker, 'Ker to the college came, wending his wild way' (which has 'accompanying sketches') is included among the titles; but Ker is not mentioned in the General Index…. But here is, if not God's, at any rate Chesterton's plenty, celebrating God's; and it is only to encourage explorers that I cite small defects in this magnificent guide to it.

John Calder: Pursuit, by John Calder (621 pp, £24.99). Rev. by John Ardagh, The Times, 13 Jan 2002.
These 'uncensored' memoirs seem in places to be unedited too (as can happen when an author is his own publisher. Some passages should have been pruned. The indexing has its inaccuracies. And plenty of names are misspelt….

Cambridge University Press: Tsunami: the underrated hazard, by Edward Bryant (2001, 320 pp, £19.95). Rev. by Kenji Satake, Nature, 415, 24 Jan 2002.
Parts of the book lack rigour and consistency; especially needed are a more comprehensive and better-organized index and a glossary of tsunami jargon from the many fields involved.

Chicago University Press: Getting it published: a guide for scholars and anyone else serious about serious books, by William Germano (2001,197 pp). Rev. in Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 33(2), Jan 2002.
Where Germano does mention print-on-demand - which is not featured in the (rather sparse) index - he does so in such a way that potential authors could well conflate print-on-demand books with e-books….

Elm Bank Publications: Francophone voices, ed. and presented by Kamal Salhi (1999, viii + 248 pp, £24.99). Rev. by Roger Little, French Studies, LV2, April 2001.
Of the editor's contribution, as of the catastrophically inaccurate and incomplete index, the least said the better…. When my listing of journal titles reached over five times the number given in the index, I stopped counting.

Fitzroy Dearborn: Censorship: a world encyclopedia, ed. by Derek Jones (4 vols, 2,891 pp, £265). Rev. by Robert Potts, Times Literary Supplement, 15 Feb 2002.
A major problem with the encyclopedia is its lack of adequate cross-referencing. Finding or chasing a topic is infuriatingly difficult. Should a reader want to know whether a name or law mentioned in one article is discussed elsewhere in greater depth, he must first use the headword list (which is printed, mercifully, in each volume), and, if there is no specific entry, find it in the index. I have not been able to work out the criteria used by the indexer; but the entries do not appear to be exhaustive, and when several citations appear, there is no way, short of looking up each in turn, to ascertain their relevance. For example, I wanted to find out in De l'Esprit by Helvétius was indeed burned. Helvétius does not have an entry; and not one of the five page references indexed under his name led to any illumination on this point.

Georgia Institute of Technology: Social issues in science and technology: an encyclopedia, by David E. Newton (1999, 352 pp, $75). Rev. by Julie Wood, Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Spring 2000.
Although the alphabetic organization is easy to use, some common terms, such as pollution, are broken down into more specialized topics such as feedlot pollution, methyl bromide and radon. These fine gradations are not reflected in the index under pollution. It is necessary to utilize the see-references for the entry entitled pollution instead.

Government Institute: Environmental law handbook, ed. by Thomas F.P. Sullivan (14th edn, 1997, 587 pp, $79). Rev. by Ann Jenson, Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Fall 1997.
The index is cumbersome, again because of inconsistencies between the use of full phrases and acronyms. The expanded Table of Contents functions as a highly detailed outline of each environmental act and is more useful than the index.

Greenwood Press: A companion to Jane Austen studies, ed. by Laura Cooner Lambdin and Robert Thomas Lambdin (£66.95). Rev. by D.S., Newsletter of the Jane Austen Society, March 2002.
The Index is even worse [than the bibliography]. Whilst it is too short to include most of the above [important English scholars], it finds room for Kingsley Amis, Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, Terrence Rafferty (a film critic) and The Who. There are many references to adaptations, with entries for 'Films', 'Omissions of characters in films' (under 'O'), 'British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)', 'Miramax', 'Hugh Grant' and 'Emma Thompson'; we can look up 'World wide web', 'E-text' or 'The Republic of Pemberly' (sic); and we may be surprised to find such disconcerting phenomena as 'Geocities', 'Property relations', 'Use rights', 'Value systems' and 'Foot binding'. We have to look only as far as page 2 to find that 'Jan West' is in fact 'Jane'; Thomas Gainsborough 'gaines' an 'e'; and 'Sir James [Martin]' (a character in 'Lady Susan') is listed under 'S'.
If it seems unfair to dwell on the Bibliography and Index, it is worth remembering that this is a 'Companion', a book of reference….

HarperCollins: A treasury of Anglo-Saxon England: faith and wisdom in the lives of men and women, saints and kings, by Paul Cavill (£15.99). Rev. by Douglas Dales, Church Times, 15 Feb 2002.
It is seriously flawed, however, in the paucity of its index, and the patchiness of its bibliographical references. This will profoundly limit its usefulness; and it is certainly, therefore, overpriced.

Harvard University Press: The century of the gene, by Evelyn Fox Keller (2000, 186 pp, £15.95). Rev. by Peter W.H. Holland, Biologist, 48(3), 2001.
Finally, a practical moan. Why does each citation in the text lead one first to a footnote, which then simply refers one to the reference list? Bizarrely, both are then indexed. Thus, I am quoted once, yet the index affords me three page references (to the text, the footnote and the reference!).

Hutchinson: Primo Levi, by Ian Thomson (624 pp, £25). Rev. by Clive James, Times Literary Supplement, 21 June 2002.
Louis Armstrong, though present on page 118 of Thomson's book, is missing from its index. So are Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. They are in the text, but they don't make it to the status of a fact that a scholar might want to look up later on.

IOS Press: A century of science publishing, ed. by E. H. Fredriksson (2001, 312 pp, $40). Rev. by Michael Foyle, LOGOS, 13(1), 2002.
A number of infelicities, and just plain errors, might have been caught with tougher sub-editing. More seriously, in a publication devoted to this topic, one might have expected more synopses and a better index.

Frances Lincoln: The plants that shaped our gardens, by David Stuart (£25). Rev. by Sue Armstrong, New Scientist, 13 April 2002.
Sadly, its lasting appeal as a reference book is let down by a seriously inadequate index.

Macmillan: The new Grove dictionary of music and musicians, ed. by Stanley Sadie (2nd edn, 29 vols, 27,742 pp, £2,950, online subscription £190 p.a.) Rev. by Andrew Porter, Times Literary Supplement, 23 Nov 2001.
New Grove on Line, http://www.grovemusic.com/, edited by Laura Macy, is convenient to use and in some ways more readily informative than NG2. It 'searches' swiftly…. Volume Twenty-nine of the printed edition is an index, but one too summary to be helpful. Use NGoL to discover all mentions of a subject, a person, or an instrument, all entries by an admired author.

MIT Press: Digital libraries, by William Y. Arms (2000, 287 pp, $45). Rev. by Allen B. Veaner, College & Research Libraries, 62(3), May 2001.
A generally excellent glossary helps the reader understand numerous technical terms and acronyms, although some acronyms are left undecoded and entered into neither index nor glossary…. The index itself is seriously deficient, lacking entries for obvious topics such as the CLIR (or its predecessor, the CLR), Library of Congress, NISO, RLG, RLIN, and UNIX, and excluding a host of contemporary personal names important to the development of digital libraries (e.g. Henriette D.Avram). In fact the entire index contains only two personal names: Vannevar Bush and J.C.R. Licklider. Quite a number of index entries even lack their full complement of locators.

Mosby: The desktop guide to complementary and alternative medicine: an evidence-based approach, ed. by Edzard Ernst (2001, 444 pp, £24.95). Rev. by Celia Moss, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, vol. 94, Dec. 2001.
The enclosure of a CD-rom, with Medline links to all references as well as the whole test of the book, makes it astonishingly good value. The index might be improved in the next edition, but terms not listed (e.g. acne and psoriasis) can easily be found by searching the disc.

John Murray: Imperial marriage, by Hugh and Mirabel Cecil (366 pp, £25). Rev. by Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The Spectator, 23 March 2002.
Nor do the editing and proof-reading win high marks: 'corporate punishment' suggests Enron rather than caning, it's hard to believe that 'the fifteen-year-old Prince of Wales' was serving with the Guards, and an index reference to page '388' is of limited use in a book 366 pages long.

Oak Knoll Press: The memory of mankind: the story of libraries since the dawn of history, by Don Heinrich Tolzmann (2001, xiv + 188 pp, £28/$39.95). Rev. by Maurice B. Line, LOGOS, 12(4), 2001.
The Index, also Tolzmann's responsibility, is altogether inadequate; it was evidently compiled by computer, with no sign of human intervention. It consists almost entirely of personal names, but even within those limits it is very poor; 'Lorenzo' turns out to be Lorenzo de' Medici (also indexed under 'de Medici' but not under 'Medici'); three cardinals are indexed under 'Cardinal'; 'Whittall' is the Whittall Foundation, 'Tilly' refers to a mention of the capture of Heidelberg by Tilly's troops, and so on.

Orion: The cult of violence: the untold story of the Krays, by John (241 pp, £16.99). Rev. by David Vincent, Times Literary Supplement, 8 Feb 2002.
Pearson's retouching of his own portrait of the Kray twins adds authority to a landmark text on their lives and influence, despite indifferent editing and a woefully slapdash index.

Oxford University Press: A descriptive catalogue of the medieval manuscripts of Exeter College, Oxford, by Andrew Watson (viii + 150 pp). Rev. by Nicholas Orme, Archives, 26(104), April 2001.
If one may end with suggestions for the future, it would be good if catalogues of manuscripts could say more about the prosopography of their owners and donors, and provide more thorough indexes. This would help their works to make the historical (as well as the bibliographical) impact that they deserve.

Oxford University Press: The Oxford companion to the body, ed. by Colin Blakemore and Sheila Jennet (753 pp, £39.50). Rev. by W.F. Bynum, Times Literary Supplement, 15 Feb 2002.
More puzzling is the virtual absence of homosexuality. Lesbianism fails to make the full index at all, and homosexuality appears there once only, referring the reader to the entry on sexuality. There is actually better coverage a few pages later, under Sexual Orientation, but the topic deserves fuller treatment in such a volume.

Oxford University Press: The Oxford companion to twentieth-century British politics, by John Ramsden (714 pp, £35). Rev. by Anthony Howard, Times Literary Supplement, 15 Feb 2002.
The index of subjects is not much better, either. Presumably to disguise what an imbalance there is between the political names and those following other vocations, all the MPs and Ministers (even the names of Prime Ministers) are listed not by date or even in alphabetical order, but rather, alphabetically and not by period of office, under the parties to which they belonged.

Oxford University Press: Revolutionary France: 1788-1880: the short Oxford history of France, ed. by Malcolm Crook (250 pp, £14.99). Rev. by Douglas Johnson, The Spectator, 9 Mar 2002.
The names of some of those who have had a profound effect on the study of these years are mentioned: François Furet, Alfred Cobban and Eugen Weber, for instance. But their names are banned from the index, a sign that this book is not about their writings. [Or a sign of a not very comprehensive index?]

Picador: The invention of clouds, by Richard Hamblyn (£16.99). Rev. by Steven Poole, The Guardian, 15 Dec 2001.
Incidentally, the Pan Macmillan General Books Design Department has fashioned, in the typographical design, a rather lovely homage to late 18th- and early 19th-century printing; it is only a shame that the undersized and overleaded text of the index seems to belong to another book entirely.

Random House: Savage beauty: the life of Edna St Vincent Millay, by Nancy Milford (555 pp, $29.95). Rev. by Sarah Churchwell, Times Literary Supplement, 14 Dec 2001.
With the mistaken assurance of long association, Milford mistitles a major poem (even in the index).

Routledge: Atlas of medieval Europe, ed. by Angus Mackay and David Ditchburn (x + 271 pp, £15.99). Rev. by David Hill, Medieval Archaeology, Vol. XLIV, 2000.
… the index does not refer to the relevant map or maps (confusingly the maps are provided with an apparatus for locating placenames by having letters and figures provided in the margins; these are without explanation and one must assume they belong to some abandoned stage in developing this Atlas).

University of Pennsylvania Press: Private science: biotechnology and the rise of the molecular sciences, ed. by Arnold Thackray (c. 1988, 304 pp, $52.50). Rev. by Nancy H. Fontaine, Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Summer 1998.
Overall the book is a fine collection of scholarly work that is supported with copious notes and an index, although the latter is not terribly detailed, and it suffers from occasional entries with excessive page number references.

Verso: The business of books, by André Schiffrin (£10). Rev. by Nicholas Lezard, Guardian, 5 Jan 2002.
… it suffers, as usual, from bad Verso indexing.