spinstah

Indexing, Chronicles of

In Spring 2007, I took LIS 419—Subject Analysis with Prof. Candy Schwartz. The course covers thesaurus and index construction, and each student is required to build a thesaurus or an index (see also: Candy's description of the project). Following is a brief description of my project, and links to download the actual product.

A Note of Thanks

I owe a debt of gratitude to Prof. Sheila Denn, whose willingness to help solve strange and complicated problems of database design made this entire project possible. A database does not an index make, but with her assistance Microsoft Access was coaxed into handling bibliographic data.

Background & Brief Project Description

The Congregational Library is a small, special library in Boston that focuses on the history of American Congregationalism. Since 1949, the Congregational Library has produced The Bulletin of the Congregational Library, a periodical containing historical essays on Congregationalism and American religion, news about the library and its collections, book reviews, information on new acquisitions and other news of interest to the readership.

While in-library use of The Bulletin is not heavy, there is a need for an updated index—the current index covers issues up to and including the Spring/Summer 1989 edition. This index is available only in hard copy, and is used primarily by staff to answer reference questions. It consists of an author and editor index and a subject index. The goal of this project was to update the index by incorporating the twenty-two unindexed issues. In addition, the entire index was put into a database so staff can more easily keep it current. The library currently uses Access 2003 for several other databases, and this software was used to create the new index to The Bulletin. Business rules and indexing policies were created, along with instructions for data entry, so staff at the library can update the index as new issues are published.

Final Project Components

Note: All PDFs will open in a new window.

Project Report (540 KB PDF): This describes the entire process of creating the index, including exploratory readings in indexing, examination of several possbile thesauri, and descriptions of problems encountered and their solutions
Indexing Guidelines & Documentation (589 KB PDF): This document describes the structure of the database and the various reports that it produces. It also includes guidelines for construction and use of subject headings, as well as two sets of data entry instructions—a quick-start checklist for those familiar with Access, and step-by-step instructions with screenshots for those who are not.
The index itself (209 KB ZIP): If you are so inclined, you may download a copy of the database to examine yourself. This ZIP file contains the database, which was created in Microsoft Access 2003. PDFs of each of the reports created are available below.
Reports: The database creates several reports to display the data in various ways:

Articles by Subject (290 KB PDF): This 127-page report is the primary method in which the librarians will use this index. Each subject heading in use is displayed, along with citations to any articles to which the heading has been assigned. It should be noted that, due to the limitations of Access, see also and use terms are not interfiled with the preferred subject headings.
Article Citations (134 KB PDF): Full records for each item in the index.
Author Index (45 KB PDF): Each author is listed, with brief citations for the articles he or she has authored.
Authors (17 KB PDF): A report to be used primarily for data entry. This lists authors alphabetically and includes the unique identifying number for each.
Thesaurus (63 KB PDF): This report will be used to perform the indexing of new items as they are added to the database. This lists all of the subject headings entered into the database (along with their unique identifying numbers), and where applicable indicates see also and use terms.

At the last meeting of the class, each of us presented our project. To support my presentation, I documented my progress in a Flickr Photoset: Indexing, Chronicles of. The presentation itself was very much off-the-cuff, with a text-light PowerPoint slideshow to entertain my classmates and remind me of what to say next; thus, posting it here will not provide you with any enlightenment.

Fun Facts & Figures

The index contains 237 articles, illustrations, bibliographies and photos, authored by 117 writers (plus one entry to indicate an unsigned piece).
It holds 425 subject headings (plus two scope notes), which have been assigned to articles 1,033 times.
The term used the most frequently is Congregational Library (Boston, Mass.) –- Collections, which appears 25 times. Next is Church polity at 24, and Clergy with 22.
197 terms are used only once.
The thesaurus has 38 use references and 98 see also references and is 27 pages long.
The report "Articles by Subject," the primary way in which librarians will use the index, is 127 pages long.
Two articles, both from the original index, have only one subject heading applied.
One article has 16 subject headings applied, another 12. Most of the articles have from 3 - 6 subject access points.

This page last updated on March 15, 2008.