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Are they worth the cost?
Good indexes impact sales. This is how:
• Amazon.com knows that potential buyers do look at
indexes when deciding which of several similar books to purchase,
so they now include indexes in the "Look Inside"
feature.
• Professors and academic teams look at
indexes when deciding on which books will be used as textbooks.
• Librarians make decisions buying books.
An index is one of their most important purchasing criteria.
• Book Reviews mention indexes, especially
bad indexes. Most recently the Clinton autobiography was in
the press.
Indexing Bill: The Washington Read
by Peter Canellos. Boston Globe, June 27, 2004, D5
Everyone in the nation's capital knew, just
knew, that Bill Clinton's book would be explosive. But it
wasn't until the first purchasers ventured out last Monday,
...that they discovered the extent of the outrage. The 38-page
index isn't complete. It isn't even accurate. And thus the
one thing that made the book a "Washington read"
-- the chance to learn who was or wasn't included -- was
lost like an invitation that got caught in the mail.
Why, for instance, among the foreign-policy
gurus listed on page 103 are ambassador Edwin Reischauer
and diplomat George Kennan listed in the index, while New
York Timesman Harrison Salisbury and Massachusetts; own
General James Gavin are not?
Worse, some mildly promising mentions are
wrong. The index says page 563 refers to Barbra Streisand's
friendship with Clinton's mother, but it actually discusses
presidential appointments, the National Child Protection
Act, and crafts chosen by Hillary as 1993 Christmas decorations.
Most listings aren't by subject, so the index
doesn't say on which of the 12 pages that mention former
treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers does he alert the president
that he has just met "some guy named Bono -- just one
name -- dressed in jeans.", T-shirt, and big glasses."
The victims of the sloppy index are, at first
blush, the peripheral Washington and Little Rock figures
who are noted in the book but not listed, an ignominy that
may be worse than not being included at all, since they
paid for those references in fealty to Clinton.
But all readers are cheated since this massive
book was so clearly constructed to be read from the index
forward.
The full text of this article can be found at:
(http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles
/2004/06/27/indexing_bill_the_washington_read/)
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