History of Indexing: Indexing before ASAIB
Peter Duncan
Early Period
Indexing as we know it now, starts with the idea that some method is needed to find
information in a long text document, or many documents. In ancient Egypt the Egyptians
marked important parts of the text with red ink. In ancient Rome they stored scrolls on
shelves top-end of the scroll facing into the room; on this end they place a slip of paper
called an index or titulus. This indicated the content of the scroll. In the dark ages
manuscripts of Gospels were begun with a cannon table comparing the four Gospels.
Canon table from the Lindesfarne Gospels
ca 700 AD.
In the medieval period the need to make the Bible very accessible was appreciated by
Stephan Langton (1150-1228), Archbishop of Canterbury. He did this by breaking the books
of the Bible up into chapters and is credited with dividing it further into verses. The
accepted division was actually done by the French printer Robert Estienne in the mid
sixteenth century.
Stephan Langton (1150-1228)
Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253)
In what was to be the standard medieval manner the Bishop of Lincoln, Robert Grosseteste
(1175-1253) created an index to the works he had read. He used symbols to indicate where
to find subjects. Monasteries in a similar way indexed their manuscript collections, sermons
and listing lives of saints. They also used summaries at the beginning of documents to
indicate the content.
The invention of printing
The printer Peter Schoeffer (ca. 1425-1503), of Mainz and Gutenberg’s successor there,
regarded his books as being superior because they included indexes. He was also among the
first printers to employ editors, part of whose job was to index. He employed Nicolaus
Cerseth, a frair, to index his edition of St. Augustine’s De civitate Dei (1473). The printers
Sweynheym and Pannartz had already employed another frair, Nicolas Triveth, to index
their 1468 printing of this work.
The first printed indexes came out in the early 1460’s in two editions of St Augustine’s De
arte praedicandi, the first published by Furst and Schoeffer and the other by Mentelin of
Strassburg. The first dated one was produced by in Rome by Sweynheym and Pannartz for
Roderigo de Zamora ‘s Speculum vitae (1468). The first dated use of the word register or
registrum was in Turrecrematta Exposito Psalteri (4 Oct 1470). Ulrich Han, the printer, gave
the work an alphabetical list of the catchwords of each double sheet.
Bernardo Machiavelli (1428-1500) by mentioning his own indexing activities, in his Libri di
recordi (1485) became the first named indexer. Florentine printers, the Laurentii, asked him
to index a planned edition of Livy’s Decades in 1475, which he did. He gave the completed
index to his son Nicolas to take to the binders to be bound. There is now no trace of this
index and it seems that no edition of the Decades was ever produced by the Laurentii. It is
said however that Niccolò developed an interest in Livy and wrote a commentary on the
Decades, a Discourses on Livy (1517).
Sixteenth century indexes
In people’s minds it was still not clear as to what an index should be called. In St John
Chrysostom. Commentarium (1554) it was termed “index omnium”. The Toscanelli.
Obervationi ... di Vilgilio (1568) calls it a table ‘tavola delle cose notabli’ Two lists, an ‘index
tabulorum’ as well as an ‘indice’ were issued with Ortelius. Theatrum orbis terrarium (1570).
The “indice” was a gazetteer.
At this stage the producer of the index was usually the author and this was to remain so
until the eighteenth century . Herbals appear to have been always published with an index.
An interesting and detailed one was issued with a Latin translation by Ermolao Barbaro of
Dioscorides. Materia medica (1516). It indexed diseases and herbs.
Seventeenth century indexes
The convention that indexes be placed at the back of the books appears to have been
established by this century, as in Thévenot. Travels (1686). The term index is now the
accepted name for them as is apparent in this quote from Shakespeare:“And in such indexes, although small pricks
To their subsequent volumes, there is seen
The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come at large”--Act 1 Sc. 3: Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida (1602)
Quoted Knight (1968) 169
The fact that authors were responsible for the indexing had an interesting result for one
author Henry Prynne. His index won him great trouble and lost him his ears. His Historiomastix (1633) criticized the stage as something which leads to immorality. The text is
described as being un-readable but his index clearly explains his ideas. One example was his
entry for actresses:“Women-Actors, notorious whores … and dare then any Christian women be so more than
whorishly impudent as to act, to speake publikely on a stage … O let such presidents of imprudency
… be never heard of … among Christians , p. 385”
Quoted Knight (1968) 168
At the time, of publication, the Queen Henrietta Maria happened to be planning a pastoral
in which her court ladies would act. When the author was prosecuted in the Star Chamber
his index entries, including this one, were used against him and he was fined, as guilty of
seditious libel, and sentenced to the pillory and deprived of his ears. His unreadable text
would have been ignored as evidence.
Later in the century Samuels Pepys indulged in a bit of private indexing He made an index to
the abstracts of contracts with suppliers to the British Navy, and also later indexed their
maps, charts and books. Having acquired a taste for this, with is brother’s aid, he also
indexed his own collection of books.
Eighteenth century indexes
This century saw the rise of professional indexers. They were educated but of inferior status,
as indicated in Dean Swift’s A further account of the most deplorable condition of Mr
Edmund Curll … (1716). His “index maker” is described as living in what might be regarded as
an attic with minimal furnishings; his bed being solely a mattress.
Inverted entries, explain the entry, were still common as these from the Ladies’ magazine or
Entertaining companion for the fair sex. Vol 7, 1776
Advertisement, an extraordinary one
Dead, select dialogues of the letters from the, to the living
Dissipation, dangers of
Dullness, humourously [sic] described
Fair sex, effusions in praise of them
Fans, moral reflections on them
I’ll tell you what, a fable of
Mistake, a terrible one
Perseverance, in point of love
Virtue in distress
Quoted Indexer (1986-87) 15(1): 28
The danger of this was that reading the index could tell enough about the book to save from
the trouble of reading it. Alexander Pope complained about this in his Dunciad (1728)
“How index learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail”
Quoted Knight (1968) 169
A most noteworthy indexer of this period was the eccentric Alexander Cruden. The first
edition of his Complete concordance to the Holy Scriptures appeared in 1737. The third
edition of 1769, the last he worked on, forms the basis of all subsequent printings. This
index has had the longest run of all indexes in being in-print. The reprint of 1823 had a
memoir of his life added. This was by an Alexander Chambers who suggested that compiling
the index helped to give the rather unstable Cruden a measure of sanity. Still Cruden had
been committed to an asylum three times during his life.
Alexander Cruden (1699-1770)
Nineteenth century indexing
The inverted sentence entry remained common and survived well into the last century. The
importance of indexes began to be recognised and they came to be more common. The
seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1827-1842) had as its last volume an index
to the other 21 volumes.
Important for the indexing profession was Henry B. Wheatley who in 1877 founded the
Index Society with the aim of producing indexes to scientific and history books which had
been published without any. He was a man of varied interests, involved in the foundation of
the (British) Library Association he also founded the Samuel Pepys Club and published an
edition of the Diary (1893). His Brother was possibly an equally competent indexer and they
often collaborated.
For indexers, under the society’s auspices he published What is an index? (1878) and How to
make an index (1902). The Index society ceased operating in 1890. It had failed according to
Wheatley because it had been over-ambitious and should have limited itself to major
historical works. Publishing separate, often obscure, indexes was also not commercially
viable.
Henry B. Wheatley (1838-1917)
An eccentric indexer, harking back to Henry Prynne, was John Ruskin who used his index to
correct his own mistakes, or comment on the text in his collection Fors clavigera (1894) a
book of articles or letters written monthly, between 1871 and 1884, by him to advise the
British working classes. Entry for the term ‘Artists’:Artists are included under the term workmen 11, 10; but I see the passage as inaccurate, for I of course meant to include musicians among artists, and therefore among working men; but
musicians are not ‘developments of tailor or carpenter’
Quoted Indexer. (1984-85) 14(2): 124
Twentieth century indexing
An enterprising freelance indexer, who helped to advance the profession in the first half of
the twentieth century, was Mary Petherbridge. Her Secretarial Bureau gave training in
indexing. She worked for various publishers, the India office, private institutions, companies
and the HMSO as their official indexer. Her Technique of indexing (1904) advocated the use
of slips of paper for books and cards for company indexes (their indexes to customers and
patients). In the last chapter, she mentions how the Government and companies are
employing indexers and that, publishers are the worst payers. She wrote an article on
‘Indexing’ in the 1914 issue of The English Woman’s yearbook and directory. It was printed
in the section dealing with professions. She also published another one in Good
housekeeping. Sept. 1923 entitled ‘Indexing as a profession for women.’
It became standard practice for reviewers to point out the lack of an index when discussing
nonfiction works. Sir Stanley Unwin in his The truth about publishing (1926) noted that if the
publisher does not include one ‘… every reviewer will relieve the publisher of the necessity
of pointing out the defect.’
Chronology of events to 2014
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1957 Society of Indexing (SI) founded -G. Norman Knight, a freelancer
1958 First issue of the Indexer
1968 American Society of Indexers (ASI) founded - Theodore C. Hines a Library
science academic
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1976 Australian Society of Indexers (AusSI) founded - H. Godfrey Green, a Freelancer
replaces Society of Indexers in Australia (1972)
1977 Indexing and Abstracting Society of Canada/Société Canadienne pour l’analyse
de documents (IASC/SCAD) Peter Grieg, an indexer at Canada’s Library of Parliament.
Grew out of an Indexing Committee of the Bibliographical Society of Canada.
1994 Association of South African Indexers and Bibliographers (ASAIB) Rubin
Musiker, Wits University Librarian, Academic & Jackie Kalley, Librarian.
2004 New Zealand branch of AusSI opened - changes name to ANZSI
2006 Indexing Society of Canada/Société canadienne d'indexation (ISC/SCI)
Canadians drop ‘abstracting’ from their title. Abstracting is not What They do.
References
Bell, Hazel K. 2008. From flock beds to professionalism. Hatfield, Hertfordshire: HKB Press.
Clare, Colin. 1969. A chronology of printing. London: Cassell.
Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. 1987. The printing press as an agent of change. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Index makers: Mary Petherbridge, 1870-1940. 1988. Indexer 16(2): 115-116.
Indexers past: index for after thoughts. 1984-85. Indexer 14(2): 124
Indexes past. 1986-87. Indexer 15(1): 28
John Chrysostom. 1545. Commentariorum D. Ioannis Chrysostomi in omnes Pauli epistolas.
Paris: Gaultherot
Knight, G. Norman. 1968. Book indexing in Great Britain: a brief history. Journal of library
history 3(2): 166-172
Ladies monthly museum 6 (1801)
Ortelius. 1570, facsimile 1964. Theatrum orbis terrarium: Antwerp 1570. Amsterdam: Israel
Thévenot, Jean de. 1686. The travels of Monsieur de Thevenot into the Levant.
London: H. Clark
Toscanella, Orazo. 1568. Osservationi …sopra l’opera di Vilgilio. Venice: De Ferrari
Wellisch, Hans H. 1986. The oldest printed indexes. Indexer 15(2): 73-80
Internet sources
https://www.anzsi.org/site/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapters_and_verses_of_the_Bible
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indexing_Society_of_Canada
Images
Concordance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruden's_Concordance#mediaviewer/File:Cruden%27sConcordance.JP
G
Cruden
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/other/cruden_alexander.htm
Gospels
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/lindisfarne/accessible/page4lge.html
Grosseteste
http://www.nndb.com/people/700/000096412/
Langton
http://www.stephanlangtonpub.co.uk/history.html
Livy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Titus_Livius.jpg
Machiavelli
http://uh.edu/engines/300px-Samuel_pepys.png
Schoeffer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Peter_Schoeffer.jpg
Wheatley
http://www.indexers.org.uk/index.php?id=400