Paula Clarke Bain

It’s February so it must nearly be time for the third National Indexing Day (NID). Yes, it’s National Indexing Day III: The Return of the NID.

National Indexing Day was invented and launched by the Society of Indexers (SI) in 2017 to celebrate book indexes, the work of indexers and the profession of indexing. The date of 30th March was chosen as it marked the 60th anniversary of the formation of the Society of Indexers. We do reserve the right to move the date slightly each year. In 2018, it would have landed on Good Friday so we made it 29th March. In 2019, 30th March would be the day after Br*xit (or will it?) so we thought we’d better squeeze it in beforehand.

In 2017, the NID was an entirely online event using the hashtag #indexday, mainly because my SI colleague Ruth Ellis and I only invented the idea three weeks before the day. You can read more about the coverage we managed to get on social media and in the press, including articles by Sam Leith in The Guardian and Dennis Duncan in the Times Literary Supplement, here: National Indexing Day 2017.

In 2018, we held our first National Indexing Day event for publishers at the Foundling Museum in London, with a programme focusing on good practice in indexing, how indexers train and work, and digital publishing developments including indexing software options and the use of embedded and linked indexes for ebooks. We were joined by a room full of editors and project managers from several leading academic and trade publishers such as Cambridge University Press, Hodder Education, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, Oxford University Press, SAGE Publishing, Taylor & Francis, Transworld (Penguin) and UCL Press. There was also plenty of #indexday activity going on online through the day. You can see more about NID 2018 here: National Indexing Day 2018.

In 2019, the NID will hit the North. We are again running an event for editors and other interested publishing professionals, this time at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester. Following an introduction by the SI honorary president Sam Leith, there will be another similar programme of talks by SI members Nicola King (SI Chair), Ann Kingdom, Ruth Ellis, Jan Worrall and me, and opportunities for publishers and indexers to meet and mingle, ask questions and continue discussions. We hope that the excellent Manchester venue may attract additional publishers and I’m looking forward to this one being on my doorstep, as I live in Greater Manchester myself.

More information and the official SI press release on National Indexing Day are available at: www.indexers.org.uk/news/national-indexing-day-2019/.

Tickets and a provisional programme are available on the SI website at: https://www.indexers.org.uk/events/national-indexing-day-2019/.

There will be more updates posted here as our plans progress.

If you appreciate the value of a good index – and indeed a good indexer – please join in with our celebrations either live in Manchester on online with #indexday.

Long live the NID.

Hit the North!

Or alternatively:

Paula Clarke Bain is a professional book indexer and editor. She likes comedy, books and indexes and really likes comedy book indexes. See more at her website at baindex.org or on Twitter @PC_Bain.