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For those who were interested in the results of my inquiry about indexing software for book-length texts:

The following are standard indexing software programs:
 Cindex  http://indexres.com
 Sky  http://www.sky-software.com
 Macrex  http://www.macrex.com/

These are used by professional indexers. Each has a free downloadable trial version so you can try them out. The full packages cost $500-700. These are said to be wonderful and produce indexes in several formats (including RTF, HTML, delimited). However, I downloaded a trial copy and can see that it is well beyond my capabilities and not at all "automatic"~!

Someone said that Microsoft Word can produce an index, but others said that software with "indexing" capability usually produces only an alphabetical list of words from the text; there are no cross-references, no gathering of similar concepts under an umbrella term; no glosses explaining the difference between 2 people with the same name; no hierarchical arrangement (heading, subheading, sub-subheading).

We have hired a professional indexer for our project. The rate is quite reasonable, ~ $3.50 per page. The American Society for Indexing website lists members who can be contracted:
http://www.asindexing.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3292.

Not a bad side job for librarians!

Thank you all for your interest,
Kathy

 

 

From: ARLIS/NA List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Katherine Cowan
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 9:30 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ARLIS-L] seeking indexing software for book-length text

 

Good morning.
Has anyone used a software application to create an index to a book-length text? (we have a file of the text available...) I am looking for an affordable out-of-the-package or downloadable application that can create an index as a text file, or possibly even an html file. Please contact me off-list with details!

Thank you,
Kathy


--
Katherine Cowan ~ Senior Reference Librarian
Decker Library & Media Resources Collection
Maryland Institute College of Art
tel: 410-225-2714 ~ fax: 410-225-2316
[log in to unmask] ~ www.mica.edu/library

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