"An index is customarily regarded as an arrangement of signposts pointing the way to alphabetically analysed textual content, but may effectively serve more imaginative purposes: to relieve the text of overburdening detail, to replace footnotes, to sharpen the perspective of the text, to supplement as well as elucidate textual content. Above all, it may be made so readable that one may begin with the index, deriving from it such pleasure as will stimulate eagerness to turn back to the text, perhaps piecemeal rather than as a continuous whole. (...)
In summing up my ideas with regard to the unconventional Index, I would say that I can imagine that a mechanized, computerized Index may have its function, and that is to satisfy the mechanized, computerized human minds and their particular, totally legitimate intellectual needs. The type of Index I have in mind should be more than the carefully tended cemetery of the ideas expressed in the to-be-indexed text. (...) Ideally, then, a good Index should be more than merely a taciturn sign-post erected after all the rest has been done and is immutably crystallized. Otherwise we get the ordinary Feld-Wald- und Wiesen-Index which tells the reader how many kilometres he has to proceed in which direction, and at which locality he will receive further information, with the usual infras and supras, the ridiculous op.cits, the obscure qua voces, and the tantalizing see alsos. I prefer the Index which has a life of its own, which may pride itself on being the child of imagination, and which should enable us to spend a peaceful evening in bed, reading such an Index, as if we were reading a good novel."
William S. Heckscher, The unconventional index and its merits, The Indexer: The International Journal of Indexing
Volume 13, Number 1
https://doi.org/10.3828/indexer.1982.13.1.3https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/indexer.1982.13.1.3 #indexes
Don Curren 🇨🇦🇺🇦
Habr 25+
Habr
Prague PostgreSQL Dev Day
Abie
