Music: special characteristics
for indexing and cataloguing
Jane A. Myers
Describes how the indexing and cataloguing of music can be affected by issues of subject access,
format, genre, responsibility, language, alternate titles, excerpts, and the use of computer data
bases.
Music can be a challenge to librarianship, especially
for indexers and cataloguers. Access is needed for
composers, titles, variant titles, soloists, conductors,
performing groups, form of music, nationality, or
period. Subject cataloguing is difficult or impossible;
form and format offer infinite variety; the language of
access is inconsistent. In addition, the complexities of
access and format make it difficult to search success
fully for a known item without the aid of indexing and
cross references.
In Indexes and indexing, Collison wrote, 'There are
three types of material which last longer and keep in
better condition the less they are handled: these are
music, recordings and films. .. . Whereas it is quite
simple to glance along a row of books and read their
titles without actually touching one of them, this is an
varies considerably: the purposes of a score, a record
ing, and a libretto are different but all may represent
music, instrumental parts, anthems: all are quite
fragile, with no protective covers. Indexing is es
tridges, and cassettes.6 Access is necessary by all for
impossible method in the case of most music.'1 Sheet
pecially important for these kinds of items because it
gives safe access to a collection by reducing the wear
and tear of manual searching.
Redfern describes some types of users seeking musi
cal materials.2 Scholarly users may search by com
poser; performers search by type of instrument or
voice; teachers are interested in type of instrument and
level of difficulty. Groups of performers have varying
interests, depending on the size of the group. General
listeners frequently search by performer, while general
readers use many differing approaches. For jazz and
popular music, performers and genre, followed by
composer, were ranked as important access points.3
Computers are helping to solve some of the difficul
ties inherent in this field, and will be more helpful in
the future, when software is perfected to search the
matic subjects as well as traditional subjects.
Special characteristics
It has been said that the medium is the message:
form is inseparable from the content.4 This is certainly
true of music. The message, or use of a musical item
The Indexer Vol. 19 No. 4 October 1995
the same work.
Imaginative works are created primarily to entertain
or inspire, rather than to convey information. Yet the
information is still there and searchers will still want
subject access. As in fiction subject headings, subject
headings for these works may suggest topical themes,
settings or some concept, such as patriotism or jeal
ousy.
Printed music titles may come in varying editions, in
anthologies, as sets of parts, as arrangements for vari
ous combinations of instruments and voices, as texts
with no music, as music with no text, or as music with
text. Recorded music has a variety of forms, including
cylinders, films, disks of varying speeds and playback
technologies, audio and video tapes on reels, car
mats: the searcher has particular needs, and equip
ment, and the item may or may not be appropriate.
Similarly, it is important to distinguish between music,
and literature about music; between performance
scores, methods and exercises. Non-European tradi
tions may require new subject terms, as well.7
Buth listed eleven characteristics to be considered:
size, format, alphabetical arrangement by composer,
medium of performance, form of composition, subject
content, character content, language, geographical
orientation, style, and opus or thematic numbers.8
Smiraglia lists the following: discipline, topic, intellec
tual form, physical form, and intended audience. In
the most recent Dewey revision of the music schedules
seven facets were considered to be important: theory
(such as psychology of music), elements (such as tonal
systems),
techniques,
character
(such
style), forms, executant and composer.9
as
period
or
Music is considered to be a universal language, but
its access points can only be in one language at a time.
At the local level, this may not be a problem, but with
the possibility of internationally shared cataloguing it
becomes a major concern.
269
music: characteristics for indexing and cataloguing
Computers have made access to materials of all
kinds both easier and faster. As to the music itself.
Miller and Miller believe that "of all the humanities,
music lends itself most to computer applications;
music is precise and based upon mathematics'.10
However, search mechanisms must be carefully
designed to avoid problems caused by the complexities
of access required.
Indexing problems
Subject access
Is it possible using words to express aboutness of a
work in a wordless medium?1' Subject indexing works
best when a language is used, whether verbal, textual,
or aural, and presupposes that what is depicted can be
named.12 Music can be said to be about many things,
but this is an aspect which must consider local needs.
A teacher looking for examples of music describing a
storm will want detailed indexing. Someone looking
for a Beethoven symphony will merely want the title
and composer. Of course, many works will not have a
traditional subject no matter how creative the indexer.
Svenonius says that it is stretching language to say
that an index of musical themes is a subject index.13
Classical musicians would disagree: the musical theme
is referred to as a subject. According to the Harvard
Dictionary of Music,u a subject is 'a melody which, by
virtue of its characteristic design, its prominent posi
tion, or its special treatment, becomes a basic factor in
the structure of the composition'. Current print
indexes of musical subjects leave much to be desired,
but the potential for quick access by this access point
should not be overlooked. Sometimes it is the only
way to distinguish one work from another, when com
poser and title are the same.
The Library of Congress Subject Headings have
been criticized by the Music Library Association
Thesaurus Project Working Group for haphazard
development of syndetic structure, for inconsistent
subject headings, and for the inversion of some terms
while using others in direct order. Designed for a card
file with a minimal number of access points, headings
in LCSH (Library of Congress Subject Headings)
often limit effective subject retrieval online. Another
weakness noted by the MLA group is its 'failure to
allow for the description of works with multiple facets
... a multi-element work is treated as a multi-topic
work'. Christmas music for guitar would be given the
headings 'Christmas music' and 'Guitar music', but
these don't bring out the exact relationship between
these two facets.15
Format and genre
Each format has its own problems, as well as shar
ing some in common with others. When working with
manuscript copies, Young wrote that they were 'usu
270
ally made by lay clerks, existed for immediate use and,
done hastily, contain every sort of error'.16 It was pos
sible to find the composer's name in different forms or
even incorrectly attributed.
For jazz and popular music, genre terms change fre
quently, and are very important to users. But estab
lishing these terms is difficult. Harry Price lists the
bias of the cataloguers, an arrearage which has been
growing steadily since 1980, and budgetary and staff
limitations as factors responsible for a lack of atten
tion to genres at the Library of Congress. Also, LC
does not receive much popular material to catalogue,
and if received, it is quite often not selected for cata
loguing. 'Documentation on genres usually does not
appear in books until after the genre is passe, and the
cataloguers do not have access to popular music
periodicals.'17
Bryant describes at least four difficulties with musi
cal access points.18 They involve the title, the state
ment of responsibility, excerpts, and language.
Titles and excerpts
Music seldom has a title page. Titles appearing on
covers, on list title pages, and on the first page of
music are not always the same. Compact disks may
have differing titles on the disk label and on the con
tainer. Titles also vary in different countries and
editions. Some titles are really nicknames. Many titles
are generic; you could have thousands of symphonies
or sonatas, and hundreds by the same composer. If an
item is from a longer work, such as an opera, a sym
phony, or an anthology, the searcher may be looking
for only a portion of the work, which may have its
own title. If one is looking for a particular song by a
known composer, and it is part of a set, it will be very
difficult to find. Searchers may not know the title of
the work of which they are a part. (Anthologies share
this difficulty.)
Rabson and Rabson19 describe some of the difficul
ties in building the National Tune Index, or NTI, a
'comprehensive, multifaceted tool for research in eight
eenth century American and British secular music', by
quoting Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass.20
'... The name of the song is called "Haddocks'
Eyes'\'
'Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?' Alice
said, trying to feel interested.
'No, you don't understand,' the Knight said,
looking a little vexed. 'That's what the name is
called. The name really is "The Aged Aged Man".'
'Then I ought to have said "That's what the
song is called"?' Alice corrected herself.
'No. you oughtn't: that's another thing.
song is called " Ways and Means": but that's
what it's called, you know!'
'Well, what is the song, then?' said Alice,
was by this time completely bewildered.
'I was coming to that,' the Knight said.
The
only
who
'The
The Indexer Vol. 19 No. 4 October 1995
music: characteristics for indexing and cataloguing
song really is "A-sitting On A Gate": and the
tune's my own invention.' . ..
'But the tune isn't his own invention,' she said
to herself: 'it's "Igive thee all, I can no more."'
'With each receding decade, the documents contain
ing popular tunes and songs become scarcer, their
locations more widely scattered, and their references to
previous songs, lyrics, person, events, and social cus
toms ever more obscure.'21
A particular tune can
appear in many guises: as a song in a play; as a songsheet with new verses relating to a current event; as a
dance tune with an unrelated name; as the setting of
an air in a ballad opera; as an instrumental piece with
a name based on a line from a ballad opera air; as
part of a collection of parlour songs, with verses from
any of the above.
Responsibility
Responsibility can be an issue. Sometimes it is diffi
cult to tell which of several names is the composer and
which is the lyricist. There may be an arranger, as
well. The performer's name may be mentioned promi
nently, especially in popular music and may be respon
sible for some aspects of the musical content. Operas
are based on librettos, which are the words only, and
are almost always written by someone other than the
composer. In fact, the same libretto may have been
used by several composers to write operas of identical
titles.
Language
Language is a potential problem, since a title may
be known in several languages, and may be best
known in one that is not the original. Customary
usage is erratic; we use the foreign titles of many
works, but not for others. Russian titles may be
transliterated, or in French or English translations. In
addition, the name of the composer may have many
variants. Authority work is extremely important.
Musical terminology varies enough to cause prob
lems. According to Perry, 'Americans follow the
German nomenclature (translated), while the British
use a mixture of Anglicized Latin and French.' Thus
the US has whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth,
thirty-second and sixty-fourth notes, while the British
use semibreve, minim, crotchet, quaver, semiquaver,
demisemiquaver, and hemidemisemiquaver. An inter
esting example of migrating language occurs between
the British and the French. The former call a conduc
tor's stick a baton, the latter, a baguette. But in
France, a baton is a loaf of bread, while a baguette is a
conductor's stick. Names of instruments can be con
fusing, as well. In Italian, a tromba is a trumpet, not a
Computer difficulties
In electronic searches where the result is a list of
titles and composers, the problem of generic titles is
magnified. As Miller and Miller tell us, 'Composers
are more prolific than authors, and searching by com
poser name sends the user thumbing through many
entries . .. with the form of compositions and key
being the only distinguishing feature'.23 Library' of
Congress card numbers are not listed on musical
works, and OCLC (Online Computer Library Center)
numbers are not usually available. None of the usual
search methods on OCLC, such as author, title,
author/title are much help. Publishers' label numbers,
when available, work well.
When attempting to retrieve elements of a musical
score, the speed and accuracy of the computer make it
easy to retrieve some aspects, such as pitches, dynamic
and other markings, singly or in groups. But other
aspects require very precise definitions. To define and
search for all tonic chords would be difficult since the
definition of 'tonic' might be different in various con
texts. Finding all instances of a particular bit of
melody must be carefully defined if the searcher also
wants slight variants as well.24
Of course, when dealing with electronic versions of
the actual music, whether recorded or otherwise
encoded, there is an additional problem in that the
music is copyrighted material. This is a problem that
must be dealt with in all kinds of 'full-text' electronic
access, and is not in any way unique to musical access.
Possible solutions or approaches
In discussing subject analysis for pictures, Shatford
cites Erwin Panofsky's three levels of meaning. These
are the pre-iconographic, iconographic, and iconologic
levels, ranging from generic description of objects or
actions to interpretation of intrinsic meaning, which
may well vary from person to person and cannot be
indexed with any degree of accuracy. She also dis
cusses the difference between of and about.25 Her the
ories can be applied to music as well. A work can
describe a particular place or thing, but also be inter
preted in other ways. In situations where in-depth
indexing is needed to get full benefit from a collection,
this kind of approach can be helpful.
For jazz and popular music, Price stresses the need
to break up overly inclusive headings, to add period
subdivisions, to place less emphasis on the number of
performers, and to reconsider some geographical sub
divisions. He cites the example of rock music, stating
that there is enough mingling between the British and
the Americans, especially, that adding a geographic
subdivision seems odd. For jazz, he felt that the geo
trombone.22 Even numbers can cause confusion, since
graphic information was more useful.26
there are occasionally alternative numberings of pieces,
as when earlier works are discovered and inserted into
an already established numbering scheme.
stresses the need for a standardized vocabulary of
music and music literature terms. They suggest that it
The Indexer Vol. 19 No. 4 October 1995
The
Music
Thesaurus
Project
Working
Group
271
music: characteristics for indexing and cataloguing
'be constructed according to accepted standards; it
should be capable of accommodating different index
ing grammars ... it should support both pre- and
post-coordinate use; and it should be compatible with
LCSH'.27
Beversdorf Gabbard
feels that
PRECIS
(Preserved Context Indexing System) has 'potentials
for online catalogue use that LSCH could never hope
to have in its present state'.28 Its language is current,
and when online it will be easy to keep current, and
also lends itself well to interdisciplinary searches.
For composers' names, a standard encyclopedia of
music, such as Grove's Dictionary of music and musi
cians,29 or Thompson's International cyclopaedia of
music and musicians30 can be a guide to forms of
names, in lieu of access to OCLC's authority files. A
good understanding of the construction of uniform
titles will improve collocation of titles.
Special codes for music
According to Brook and Gould in Notating music
with ordinary typewriter characters: a plaine and easie
code system for musicke, the ideal code should be:
'1. speedy, simple, accurate in representation of pitch
and rhythm,
2. mnemonic to music notation with no arbitrarily
assigned symbols,
3. usable by non-musicians with minimal instruction,
4. easily recognizable and translatable, and
5. applicable to all music from Gregorian to mod
ern.'31
Some codes already in existence are: Intermediate
Music Language (IML), Plaine and Easie Code,
Alphanumeric Language for Music Analysis (ALMA),
Musical Information Retrieval (MIR), and Digital
Alternate
Representation
of
Musical
Scores
(DARMS).
Page describes the ideal solution to the encoding of
music for computer databases as a 'data structure that
can store a representation of the score in a form which
allows diverse computer processes to operate on the
data efficiently, yet which can be constructed from an
encoded representation of a score'.32 He describes the
DARMS* project of Bruce McLean, and variations by
Alexander Brinkman. A disadvantage of these pro
gram-based approaches is that 'programming is a
skilled technical task that most music researchers
would be unable to undertake efficiently without
special training.'
Miller and Miller suggest a thematic search key,
that could ' "name that tune" and retrieve citations to
a musical work'.33 They favour a modified version of
the Plaine and Easie Code. Notes are shown by letters
of the alphabet; digits preceding the notes show
* DARMS is the Digital Alternate Representation of Musical
Scores. Originally referred to as the 'Ford-Columbia Input
Language', it may have been changed to DARMS in honour
of a project benefactor.
272
rhythms. 1 = a whole note; 2 = a half note; 4 = a
quarter note; 8 = an eighth note; 6 = a sixteenth note.
Sharps, fiats and naturals are represented by #, b, and
n, respectively. Rests are ' = '; holds, '.'; bar lines V.
A plus or minus sign indicates a higher or lower
octave. MARC (machine readable cataloguing) subfields are ^a = clef, ^b = key, ^c = meter, =£d =
tempo, and ^e = melodic excerpt. (As an example,
Dvorak's Symphony no. 9 in F minor, 'From the New
World' would look like this: '^a G =5*b G *c 44 =£d
mb *e 2E4F4G/4.F8E2E/2E4D8B8D/2E.' The '.'
seems to be used as a dot, rather than a 'hold' in the
sense of dfermata.) They suggest adding two fields to
the MARC record, one for the incipit, or quotation of
the opening theme of a work, and one for the main
theme of the work. The incipit would be used for
accurate identification, the retrieval theme would be
for those who did not know the composer or title, just
the melody. Using the proper equipment and software,
the terminal could play back the tune. These authors
go so far as to suggest that someday a patron could
sing his theme to the computer. This seems a bit opti
mistic, since the average patron may not be accurate
enough in his performance to guarantee that the com
puter will hear what he intends. In addition, some
classical tunes have been used as settings for popular
vocal music, which could yield some interesting search
results.
Searchers don't always know the key, time signa
ture, or rests. Using just the letters of the notes is sim
pler. Miller and Miller suggest putting everything in C.
The preceding sample tune would now become:
'ABCBAAAGEGA'.34
Parsons35 used an even simpler method, for non-
musicians. It has no notes, only directions. An '*' rep
resents the first note, with the remaining notes repre
sented by an R (for repeat), U (for up), and D (for
down). In this notation, the above tune becomes
'*UUDDRRDDUU'. Amazingly, in actual use, it was
found that there were very few tunes coded identically
with this method.
Some applications
For cataloguers, Jeannette Drone describes a hyper
media music reference system that 'links cataloguing
authority data and related reference works. Graphics
of the themes provide a source for verifying works and
eliminate the need to consult thematic catalogues, and
references to collected works eliminate the need to
consult sources that index collected editions'.36
We have begun to see commercially produced com
pact disk/read-only memory (CD-ROM) products
using hypermedia: a recent catalogue lists CDs that
feature a Beethoven string quartet, a Mozart opera,
and a Stravinsky ballet. A local music store has a sys
tem called NoteStation (produced by MusicWriter,
Inc.) which gives access to an online database of songs
The Indexer Vol. 19 No. 4 October 1995
music: characteristics for indexing and cataloguing
that can be searched by composer, title, or first line.
The selected piece can be played, and if desired, it can
be printed out on the spot, in any key, and sometimes
in a choice of arrangements. (It can also be transferred
to a disk which can be played by another system.)
Carter describes a project at the University of
Colorado where vocal sheet music donated to the
library was finally made accessible to the public
through the use of a computer database. Once deci
sions were made as to what should be included,
arrangement on the shelf, and some tricky choices as
to titles and responsibility, they put the database in
multiple disks, one for each decade.37 Five years later
they had progressed to the point that it was part of
their online catalogue, using 'mock MARC format.
Now they can do keyword searches, composers who
are not in the regular catalogue appear in searches in
connection with the sheet music, maintenance is easier
and faster, and the music is being used.38
More databases are needed like the National Tune
Index, which makes it easier to trace the history of
popular tunes and words. It includes 'song titles as
well as tune names, first lines of text, cliaracteristic
refrain text, tune incipits in the NTI music code .. .
associated composers, authors, performers, and pub
lishers; and bibliographic information about each
source, including the location of the copy used for the
NTF.39 It has made it possible to locate music men
tioned in librettos, scripts, or playbills that had been
thought to be lost.
Conclusion
Electronic access will make searching easier, but the
MLA's Music Thesaurus Project Working Group con
cludes, '. . . it has also necessitated greater and more
efficient bibliographic control. . . . The tremendous
increase in the production of books and articles during
the past twenty years has created a concomitant need
for improved, more thorough indexing, which in turn
calls for a controlled vocabulary that is more logically
structured and more easily manipulated'.40
With a good, flexible music thesaurus, a healthy set
of reference books, an understanding of uniform titles,
a computer to allow all needed access points to be
used and searched, access to music material can only
get better.
When arranging access to music, it is important to
keep in mind the intended users, and to make use of
those access points appropriate to their purposes. It
must be done by someone familiar with the subject,
and also with the intended searchers. The access points
appropriate and useful for a public or an academic
library would differ from those useful for a performing
ensemble's collection. 'Some subjects can be indexed
successfully by indexers not trained in the subject. This
is not one of them.
The Indexer Vol. 19 No. 4 October 1995
References
1. Collison, Robert L. Indexes and indexing. London: Ernest
Benn, Ltd., 1972. 110.
2. Rcdfern, Brian L. Organizing music in libraries, v.l:
arrangement and classification, 2nd ed. London: C.
Bingley, 1978. 17, quoted in Richard P. Smiraglia, Music
cataloging: the bibliographic control of printed and
recorded music in libraries.
Englewood, Colorado:
Libraries Unlimited, 1989. 64.
3. Price, Harry. Subject access to jazz and popular music
material of Library of Congress catalog records. Fontes
Artcs Musicae 32, (I ) Januar-Marz 1985, 45.
4. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding media: the extensions
of man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964, quoted in Elaine
Svcnonius. Access to nonbook materials: the limits of
subject indexing for visual and aural languages, Journal
of the American Society for Information Science 45 Sept
1994. 600.
5. Lancaster, F. W. Indexing and abstracting in theory and
practice. Champaign. Illinois: University of Illinois
Graduate School of Library and Information Science,
1991. 183-4.
6. McClellan, William M. Microformatted music indexes.
Microform Review. 16 (1) Winter 1987, 21.
7. Sweeney,
Russell. Grand
Messe des 780's (With
Apologies to Berlioz), in In Celebration of Revised 780:
Music in the Dewey Decimal Classification Edition 20,
compiled by Richard B. Wursten. Canton, Mass.: Music
Library Association, cl990, 29-30.
8. Buth, Olga. Scores and recordings,. Library Trends 23 (3)
January 1975. 427-50, quoted in Richard P. Smiraglia.
Music cataloging: the bibliographic control of printed and
recorded music in libraries.
Englewood, Colorado:
Libraries Unlimited. 1989. 64.
9. Sweeney. 30.
10. Miller, Karen and A. Patricia Miller. Syncopation
automation: an online thematic index. Information
Technology and Libraries 1 (3) September 1982, 270.
11. Svenonius, Elaine. Access to nonbook materials: the
limits of subject indexing for visual and aural languages.
Journal of the American Society for Information Science
45 September 1994, 600.
12. Ibid. 605.
13. Ibid. 604.
14. Harvard dictionary of music. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1964. S. v. 'Subject'.
15. MLA
Music Thesaurus Project
Working Group.
Improving Access to Music. Notes: Quarterly Journal of
the Music Library Association 45 (4) June 1989, 715.
16. Young, Percy. Of music and indexing. The Indexer 16 (3)
April 1989, 179.
17. Price. 47.
18. Bryant, E.T. Music librarians/up: a practical guide, 2nd
ed. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1985). 157-9.
19. Rabson, Carolyn and Gustavc Rabson. Hum a few bars.
Perspectives 5(1) Spring 1985, 24.
20. Carroll, Lewis. Through the looking-glass, and what Alice
found there. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California
Press, 1983. 92.
21. Rabson and Rabson. 25.
22. Perry, Helga. Musical bumps: indexing musical terms.
The Indexer 16 (4 ) Oct 1989, 251.
23. Miller and Miller. 270-1.
273
music: characteristics for indexing and cataloguing
24. Page, Stephen. Computer tools for music information
retrieval. In Databases in the Humanities and Social
Sciences, edited by Thomas F. Moberg. Osprey. Florida:
Paradigm Press, 1985. 348.
25. Shatford, Sara. Analyzing the subject of a picture: a the
oretical approach. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 6
(3) Spring 1986, 42-7.
26. Price. 48-9.
27. MLA Music Thesaurus Project Working Group. 719.
28. Beversdorf Gabbard, Paula. LSCH and PRECIS in
Music: A Comparison. The Library Quarterly 55 (2)
April 1985, 204.
29. New Grove dictionary of music and musicians, cd. by
Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan, 1980.
30. Thompson, Oscar. The international cyclopaedia of music
and musicians. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1985.
31. Brooke, Barry S. and Murray Gould. Not at ing music with
ordinary typewriter characters; a plaine and easie code for
musicke. Flushing, N.Y. : Queens College of the City of
New York. 1974. 6.
32. Page. 359.
33. Miller and Miller. 271.
34. Miller and Miller. 273.
35. Parsons, Denys. The directory
Spence, Brown & Co., 1975. 9.
of tunes.
New
York:
36. Drone,
Jeannctte
M.
HyperBach:
a
Prototype,
Hypermedia Music Reference System. OCLC Newsletter
(174) May/June 1988, 12.
37. Carter, Nancy F. Sheet music index on a microcomputer.
Information Technology and Libraries 2 (1) March 1983,
52-5.
38. Carter, Nancy F. Sheet music index at the University of
Colorado: II. Information Technology and Libraries 7 (2 )
June 1988, 198-201.
39. Rabson and Rabson. 26.
40. MLA Music Thesaurus Project Working Group. 714.
Jane Myers is Director of the Library at Southern Ohio
College, Akron, Ohio.
Fishing for information
A friend has sent me a singular document. It is a pho
tocopy of page 255 of the fourth edition of Walton's
Compleat angler} The lower half of the page, left
blank by the printer, bears a manuscript note concern
ing a fish not mentioned in the text, in a late
seventeenth-century hand, but whether in the hand of
the master himself I cannot tell. For my present pur
pose I may quote him and say 'I might prove it, but I
think it is needless'. No use is made of the note in the
subsequent edition, but since it may be of interest to
present-day readers, I reproduce it here.
Your Information is said to take many forms, like
Proteus who wrestled with Menelaus, and be hard
to catch. Yet, like the eel, he may be taken in any
season, if he can but be lured from the bank in
in using the index to find information in a book.2
First among 'incorrect assumptions' said by the
authors to be held by indexers is: 'A typical back-ofthe-book index is an intuitive structure which most
people readily grasp'. It is also erroneously assumed,
the authors go on to say, that the user frames his
search for information in the index in the same way as
the indexer organizes his idea of the information in
the book, and that 'syndetic and classificatory struc
tures are the most important means for indicating
relationships among concepts in an index; format is
secondary. .. . Users do not seem to read intro
ductions to indexes'.
as
I doubt whether serious indexers do assess indexing
Vcnator assessed angling 'which [the fisherman]
which, being of timid disposition, he makes his
habitation. He is reported to live in rivers and has
calls an art, but doubtless it is an easy one'.3 Nor do I
the net, it may be cooked in diverse ways.
structures'. If a text is full of substance and complex,
however clearly the index is set out, however consis
been sought diligently in the Weaver and the
Shannon. If you have a byte, and succeed in land
ing your Information on line or through use of
Unfortunately
no
more
specific
instructions
are
given.
As chance would have it, I had already been
reminded of Walton's text by certain parallels I had
noted in the report of an experiment to discover how
readers used indexes and what factors impeded success
274
see how relationships among concepts can be shown in
an index otherwise than by 'syndetic and classificatory
tent the division of topics and the use of terminology,
with whatever foresight alternative approaches and
directives to the user are provided, if the user does not
read the introduction to the index, or does not even
know the alphabet,4 or, as Liddy and Jorgensen report
of one student taking part in their experiment, has 'no
The Indexer Vol. 19 No. 4 October 1995