Conference Workshop: Creating Website Indexes

Hedden Information Management

Amercian Society of Indexers Annual Conference

Pre-Conference Workshop: Creating Website Indexes

Thursday, May 24, 2007
Crowne Plaza Hotel, 1800 Market St., Philadelphia, PA
7:00 am - 8:00 am Continental breakfast
8:00 am - 12:00 noon Workshop

This half-day workshop presented by Heather Hedden instructs participants on how to create hyperlinked back-of-the-book style indexes on web sites or intranets. The presentation content, examples, and exercises come from the full 13-week series online courses that has been offered by Hedden Information Management since 2005. A review of HTML codes will be provided, so participants with no prior experience with HTML may take this workshop, but prior experience with HTML is an advantage. Indexing experience is also not necessary, but a basic familiarity with the concepts of subentries, double-posting, and cross-references is assumed. Indexing techniques and tools specific to web site indexing will be presented.

Workshop Outline

1. Introduction to web site indexes
Types of web site indexes and an analysis of sample indexes and their source code.

2. HTML tags
A review of the HTML tags used to create links from and within an index and the tags used to indent subentries.

3. Indexing software overview
Overview of the different kinds of software available for web site indexing, and summary instruction on how to output HTML indexes created in Cindex, SKY, or Macrex into HTML indexes, with or without the conversion utility HTML/Prep and the conversion feature of XRefHT.

4. Indexing tools: XRefHT
Instruction and demonstration of using the freeware tool XRefHT (Windows or Java).

5. Indexing tools: HTML Indexer
Instruction and demonstration of using the commercial tool HTML Indexer (Windows).

6: Formatting and style
When and how to change a web index's format and style and special considerations in web indexing, such as those pertaining to subentries.

7. Indexing techniques
Deciding which web pages to index and what to index within the pages chosen, among headings and other concepts. Deciding how to word the index main entries and subentries, when and how to form entries, and how to come up with additional terms. Creating See and See also cross-references and considerations in editing the index structure.

8. Web index market
What sites are most suitable for indexes. Awareness, knowledge, and demand for web site indexes. Includes discussion of marketing for freelancers and the issue of index maintenance.

9. Related topics
Taxonomies, database indexes, and meta data indexing.

Participants will be engaged in discussion and asked questions. Demos of different software will be provided. Limited post-workshop feedback will be offered to participants who subsequently e-mail website indexes they have created to the instructor.

Workshop cost: $135
This is in addition to the conference registration fee.You may attend the pre-conference workshops only, and not the conference, for an additional $100 workshop-only registration fee, which may also be applied toward attending an afternoon workshop as well. The continental breakfast and mid-morning refreshment break are included with this fee.

Registration: Registration is available online via the ASI conference website. Walk-in registrations, between 7:00 - 8:00 am, are also permitted.