cases been taken from C: A. Cutter's Rules for a Dictionary Catalogue and Melvil Dewey's Library School Rules and Simplified Library School Rules, with modifications in accordance with the later A. L. A. Catalog Rules. In these manuals many more rules may be found with illustrations, which would aid in compiling indexes to bibliographies, genealogies and other works comprising many names, though often inapplicable to general subject indexing. Statements and illustrations are also borrowed from Mr Nichols's paper already quoted. Index defined. An index, as defined in the Century Dictionary, is "a detailed alphabetic (or rarely, classified) list or table of topics, names of persons, places etc. treated or mentioned in a book or series of books, pointing out their exact positions in the volume." The word is derived from the Latin indicare, to point out, to show. Nichols gives the following definition: "An index is a table or list of references, arranged usually in alphabetical order, to subjects, names and the like, occurring in a book or other matter." W: I: Fletcher, who has had long experience as editor in chief of Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, in a paper on " Indexing prepared for the World's Library Congress at the Columbian Exposition, after drawing a distinction between catalogs, bibliographies and indexes, says: "An index is an arrangement (generally alphabetic but sometimes classified) of the analyzed contents of one book, or of the books in a certain class, and is intended to show in what books and in what places in those books information is to be found on certain subjects." Alphabetic vs. classified indexes. All these authorities imply that the classified index is exceptional. In ordinary book indexes it is generally conceded to be inconvenient and few will question the dictum of the veteran indexer, H. B. Wheatley [What is an Index? page 56] that "an index should be one and indivisible, and not broken up in several alphabets." Curious exceptions may be found, which serve to emphasize the value of this rule. Huchins's Dorset, brought out in a new edition in 1874, has eight separate indexes, that is, (1) Places; (2) Pedigrees: (3) Persons; (4) Arms; (5) Blazons; (6) Glossorial; (7) Domesday; (8) Inquisitions. A work in six quarto volumes, entitled Canada: an Encyclopaedia of the Country, is provided with a slender index volume divided into no less than twenty-three sections, eleven of which are arranged alphabetically, the remaining twelve being contents grouped under class headings and arranged in order of occurrence. Indexes to sets. A work in several volumes should have an index to the whole in one alphabet at the end of the final volume. It is convenient to have the volumes also separately indexed, if that can be afforded and will not unduly increase their size. Nichols proposes as the ideal that each volume be provided with the complete index to the set, but this plan will hardly find favor with publishers or with librarians to whom strict economy in shelf space is a necessity. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS Subject. The subject is any event, place, person, fact, relation, topic, idea, or whatever is an object of thought and may become an object of search. Entry. The entry is the word, phrase or combination of phrases expressing the subject or idea, together with any necessary modification and the page reference indicating where it may be found in the text. The following example is taken from the very full index to Eggleston's Beginners of a Nation: Sabbath-keeping, early Puritan ideal of, 127 Heading. The heading is the word or words chosen to express the subject or idea, and stands at the beginning of the entry, determining its alphabetic position. In the above entry, the heading "Sabbath-keeping" represents the subject. Modification. A modification is a word or phrase following the heading to indicate the character of the information given in the passage referred to, or otherwise to limit its meaning. In the entry above, "early Puritan ideal of" is the modification. Subhead. A subhead, or secondary heading, is a modification which is itself repeatedly modified, and therefore becomes the head of a separate group of submodifications under the main heading [see example on page 34 under heading "Boundaries," where "Connecticut" is a subhead]. The subhead does not differ in form or character from the simple modification, and requires different treatment only because it has attracted to itself several differentiated references, and must be separately indented in printing to make the meaning clear. Cross reference. A cross reference refers: (1) from a possible heading under which no page references are given to the chosen heading where they may be found ("see" reference); or, (2) connects headings which represent allied subjects or which contain related entries ("see also" reference): Electric telegraph, see Telegraph Limestone, see also Magnesian limestone Numerous entries, subheads and cross references may be grouped under one heading. To "index under a certain word" means that that word is put first in the entry and becomes the heading. FULNESS AND CHARACTER OF INDEXING Minuteness of indexing must vary according to the character and uses of the book at hand. Generally speaking, the fuller an index is, without entering into valueless minutiae, the greater is its usefulness; a book half indexed would perhaps better have no index at all, since it is as likely to mislead as to assist. But books frequently contain illustrative or explanatory matter or digressions of various kinds which, though useful in their connection, a reader would not anticipate from his knowledge of the subject, nor expect to find analyzed in the index; hence their inclusion under distinct headings is a waste of space. Too often limitation of space or the question of expense confronts the indexer, when a close estimate of the number of pages and the number of headings to a page must be made, and fulness in indexing regulated accordingly. Indexer's first duty. The indexer's first duty, then, is to acquire a clear idea of the character, scope and general plan of the work to be indexed. If possible he should read it through. If indexing from proof received in sections, he must judge as best he can from the material at hand and from such information as he can secure from author or publisher. In all cases of doubt it is better to err on the side of too great fulness in the earlier stages of the work, since it is easier to cut out superfluities in revising than to pick up statements dimly remembered which prove important as the work develops. Kinds of indexes. A book may require: (1) a general index of quite obvious subjects, as John Fiske's histories, G. W. Curtis's Orations and Addresses, Bryce's American Commonwealth, Darwin's Descent of Man; or, (2) an index of ideas, more or less difficult to reduce to alphabetic key words, as Emerson's Essays or Holmes's Autocrat; or, (3) a name index, as for botanies, atlases, genealogies etc.; or, (4) a word and phrase index, as Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. In the last case it is necessary to bring out such words as may have remained in the searcher's memory, through which he hopes to make whole a maimed and halting quotation. The following examples illustrate the difference between the indexing of words and the indexing of subjects: And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries earth, if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays. Here "June" is the very obvious subject, but entries are made in Here the underlined words chosen for entry are all that would be sought by a person striving to recall a half-forgotten quotation, but none of them represents the subject of the lines, that is, the uselessness of regret or repining. CHOICE OF HEADINGS Consider the character of the book to be indexed; what class of persons will generally consult it: high school pupils, scientific men, literary students, business men, trained bibliographers, inexperienced general readers? On what lines will they seek information? With these points in view, choose between technical and common, scientific and unscientific terms, and decide whether any system of cross reference between them, or possibly of double entry, is necessary. In a word, determine what is wanted and devise means of getting at it. A subject heading should be selected with great care since it is the alphabetic key to the matter it indexes, and the only guide to the modifications grouped under it. The indexer must put himself in the reader's place in choosing it. Select such headings as are most likely to be first looked for by the searcher for such information as they contain." [Fletcher] Use the word in the text if it fulfils this requirement; if not, supply the preferred word, keeping in mind the following principles: I Obvious key word. Choose the obvious word, even if in doing so the more exact one is sacrificed. "The cataloger and the index compiler too often arrange their entries under those headings which they consider readers and searchers ought to consult." [Clarke. Practical Indexing, page 137] Not infrequently the text words, even when they express the idea with the greatest precision, are the last that would occur to the seeker, who has not the page before him to suggest them. The index maker must consult the popular vocabulary far oftener that the dictionary in selecting key words. It may sometimes be important to use the exact terms of the text, for example, in technical books or in works of writers of marked individuality in the use of language, whose peculiar expressions impress themselves on their readers; but in these cases such words are, from a certain point of view, the obvious words, and the apparent exception proves the rule. Emerson's oft quoted phrase "hitch his wagon to a star" furnishes an illustration. The passage reads: I admire still more than the sawmill the skill which, on the seashore, makes the tides drive the wheels and grind corn, and which engages the assistance of the moon, like a hired hand, to grind, and wind, and pump, and saw, and split stone, and roll iron. Now that is the wisdom of a man in every instance of his labor, to hitch his wagon to a star and see his chore done by the gods themselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the universe. Here the main idea, which runs through several pages, is that of man's utilization of the power of the universe, both physical and spiritual. It might be expressed in the index by several key words, none of which would be so likely to occur to the searcher who had previously read the passage or heard the phrase quoted, as the words "wagon" and star," which represent it in the full index to the Riverside edition of Emerson's works; yet no one, hearing the phrase alone, fancies it to be about either wagons or stars. The quotation is often used to emphasize a different thought, that of the importance of high aims, an idea developed, though less definitely, later in the essay. 2 Prefer common terms. Do not use learned or cumbrous words where simple and common ones will do as well. 3 Avoid unimportant words. Do not enter under the unimportant and chance words in a phrase; never use as key words prepositions, conjunctions, articles or equally obscure words. The inexperienced indexer often makes the blunder of appropriating as it stands a good descriptive phrase, which sets forth the subject adequately but furnishes no usable alphabetic key, or which must |