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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.
Allen Lane: The secret
power of beauty: why happiness is in the eye of the beholder, by
John Armstrong (2004, 192 pp, £12.99). Rev. by Henry Hardy, Times
Higher Education Supplement, 22 October 2004.
The index is a bad joke (try looking up ‘happiness’ or ‘Gainsborough’).
Is it meant to be a parody?
Birlinn: The oilmen: the North
sea tigers, by Bill Mackie (2004, £14.99). Rev. by George Rosie, The
Sunday Herald, 28 November 2004.
I enjoyed Mackie’s account of the North Sea oil industry.
But I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it had included a decent index
(something that publishers seem increasingly reluctant to include). The
book would also have benefited from a glossary of technical terms and maybe
a map or two. They would have added hugely to the usefulness of what is
a loosely written but very readable history [of the industry] that saved
Britain’s (and certainly Thatcher’s) bacon in the storm-tossed
1980s.
Brill: Nicholas of Cusa and his age: intellect and spirituality, ed. by
Thomas M. Izbicki and Christopher M. Bellitto (2002, 282 pp, $85). Rev. by Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, Sixteenth
Century Journal, 34 (2004).
Despite a very useful bibliography (and an almost useless
index) at the end, the work of two editors might have been more justified
had a little more effort been expended to smooth out the wrinkles presented
by multiple citations and redundancies.
While, with a solid introduction, a full index, and attention to the
flow of the essays to justify the book form, this volume might and should
have been very interesting to scholars in general, as it stands, it will
probably be of more limited use – as a collection of papers for specialists
already in the know.
Cambridge University Press: The
reading nation in the Romantic period, by William St Clair (765 pp, £90).
Rev. by H. J. Jackson, Times Literary Supplement, 23 July 2004.
Dense with information as the appendices are, it would
not be easy to use [this book] as a reference book. The index is short
and quirky. (Who is going to look for the brief copyright window under ‘B’?)
Citadel Press: Turning
points in rock and roll, by Hank Bordowitz (2004,
320pp, £11.99) Rev. by William Keogan, 21 September
2004, www.celebritycafe.com
One small problem— the book’s index leaves
much to be desired. Before I started reading, I checked the index for some favorite groups
such as the Mamas and the Papas and the Byrds,
but neither was listed. While going through the book, however, I saw references
to both groups. Some further spot checking also indicated that certain
mentions in the text of the Beach Boys and the Who were not noted in the
index. I have a strong suspicion that this is also true for other performers.
But this is a quibble. In sum, this book is an informative stroll down
the road of Rock history that fans will find entertaining.
Continuum: Hope the archbishop, by Rob Marshall (£16.99). Rev. by Michael
Brown, Church of England Newspaper, 12 November 2004.
There are other eyebrow-raisers here, too. At least twice,
there’s the gaffe of the Church of England having an Archbishop’s
Council when, as everyone in the land knows, it’s an Archbishops’ Council
(the apostrophe after the s). Then, in the index, the Queen is said to
be HRH. Oh dear.
Countryman Press: The essential
Eating Well cookbook, ed. by Patsy Jamieson (2004, 400 pp, $29.95).
Rev. by Kim Davaz, The Register-Guard,
27 October 2004.
(I have a quibble with the index of this book. Quick Cassoulet isn't
listed under ‘Cassoulet,’ but you can find it as ‘Quick Cassoulet’ and under ‘Beans,’ ‘Chicken’ and ‘Turkey.’)
Fitzroy Dearborn: Encyclopedia of
the Romantic era, 1760-1850, ed. by Christopher John Murray (2004,
2 vols, 1,277 pp, £225). Rev. by Nora Crook, Times Literary
Supplement, 17 September 2004.
… this ambitious work would have benefited from a
firmer hand … cross-referencing is patchy and the index inadequate.
Harvard University Press: Shakespeare,
Einstein and the bottom line: the marketing of higher education by
David L. Kirp(2003, 328pp, $29.95). Rev. by
Allen B. Veaner, College & Research
Libraries, January 2005.
On the minus side, Kirp provides
no consolidated bibliography or list of references—a considerable
disservice to researchers. The endnote apparatus is frustrating, with numerous
instances of incomplete citations. What is one to make of endnote 38 to
chapter 10, with its maddeningly uninformative reference ‘Marginson, “Going Global”’, especially
if the reader has not been consulting all the endnotes? A backward search
through the earlier endnotes to chapter 10 does not immediately produce
the Marginson citation even though it is actually quite nearby.
Why? Because the full citation is buried within a long comment in endnote
36. The index, rich in personal names, is of no help: it does not list Marginson …
The index, eleven pages in length, more generous than in
many other academic works, suffers from very serious deficiencies that
mark the work of an amateur indexer. Several major topics, e.g., economic
issues, higher education, marketplace, are overbroad, duplicate
the book’s main topics, and carry far too many locators that should
have been properly subdivided. Marketplace comprises but a single, unsubdivided entry
running to three-quarters of a column. Economic issues, about two-thirds
of a column, is similarly arranged. Both entries are cumbersome and time-consuming
to use: their subentries are merely entered according to their page number
sequences, and thus are next to useless. These arrangements defy the most
elementary principle of arranging large numbers of subentries: to be serviceable,
they must be alphabetized by subtopic, not sequenced by page number. In
one instance, a locator purports to point to a page referring to the magazine U.S.
News and World Report, but the magazine actually discussed on that
page is Time. Yet Time magazine itself has no index entry.
Although the index contains a great many personal names, there is no entry
for Rupert Murdoch, the well-known publishing magnate, and none for James
Neal, Columbia’s University Librarian and Vice President for Information
Services. Neal’s highly cogent comment on Columbia’s failed
Fathom project is buried in an endnote on page 295, accessible only under Fathom,
not under Neal. Several personal name entries lack their full complement
of locators.
Houghton Mifflin: The
Gourmet cookbook, ed. by Ruth Reichl (2004,
1040 pp, $40). Rev. by Jane Dornbusch, Boston
Herald, 22 September 2004.
Reichl's faith in this book is evident in some of the hyperbole around the
recipes. You'll find ‘the world's best sticky bun recipe,’ ‘the
best mac and cheese on the planet’ and
the ‘ultimate chocolate birthday cake'’ among the dishes here.
(But you might have to search harder than you'd like; the index has some
odd quirks. You won't, for instance, find that sticky bun recipe under ‘sticky,’ ‘bun,’ or ‘pecan,’ but
rather at ‘breads - buns, pecan currant sticky.’)
Frances Lincoln: Dangerous
garden, by David Stuart (2004, 208 pp, £25). Rev. by Deni Bown, The
Garden, September 2004.
Another gripe is that the index is patchy and – surprisingly
for a book that draws some controversial conclusions – there are
no footnotes.
Oxford University Press: The
Oxford dictionary of proverbs, ed. by Jennifer Speake (2002, xiii + 375 pp, £14.99). Rev. by Laura Hicks, Editing
Matters, September/October 2004.
The citations giving the origin and development of many
proverbs are excellent and very useful. I was less convinced by the Thematic
Index at the back of the book, as I could not imagine an occasion where
I would want to trace a quotation in this way, and the headings seemed
rather strange, as if someone had had the idea that such an index would
be useful and then had to strain to find appropriate entries.
Wright Elsevier: Periodontics (5th edn),
by B. M. Eley and J. D. Manson (396 pp, £44.99). Rev. by Roger Mosedale, Dental Update, November 2004.
I and several colleagues felt the index would be difficult
to use by undergraduates or other users who have not yet acquired a reasonable
knowledge of periodontal terminology. There is, for instance, no direct
lead to ‘Risk Factors’, although all are well described and
discussed under various headings.
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