Tanya Izzard

What I did in September: a conference, a trip to Yorkshire, indexing a book about a Tudor scholar's rough book and more: tanyaizzard.co.uk/2025/10/01/s...

We finished up Day 1 of #SIConf25 with two breakout sessions, one for newer indexers, and one for the more experienced. It's always good to discuss with other indexers how we manage our careers, develop and maintain our skills, and solve problems.

Foggy view of the usually glorious Ouse Valley

Copy of Paul Scraton's A Dream of White Horses

Leaving a foggy Sussex on my way to Birmingham for @indexers.bsky.social's #SIConf25. Reading this beautiful novel which is, appropriately, mostly set on trains.

Gerard Gustavus Ducarel de la Pasture, EMD’s uncle As promised on my post about the de la Pasture family, here’s a separate post about EMD’s uncle, Gerard de la Pasture. Gerard was the second child of Henri Pierre de la Pasture and his wife Ellen Craw...

After a bit of a gap due to indexing duties, a new E.M. Delafield blog post about her uncle, Gerard de la Pasture: emdelafield.org/blog-databas...

Congratulations, it has been so enjoyable to follow this particularly challenging challenge.

Nice! I was once, on the spot, handed a microphone and invited to speak about my experience of indexing the book. Thankfully I managed to find something to say.

Have just done one about Muslim Europe which made me long to visit Granada. Currently it's a Tudor priest and scholar who is giving me less Wanderlust.

Ah, that's a good idea. The last launch I went to was the more usual reading and panel discussion - interesting but much less colourful. Very glad to have had the opportunity to attend this, it's extraordinary where indexing can take you!

For @nicolaking.bsky.social, a little bit of the music played:

Some of the band of the Grenadier Guards, dressed in red jackets, black trousers and bearskin hats, playing brass musical instruments

The cover of the book The Ironmongers' Company: a History by Penelope Hunting, showing the Company's coat of arms (including salmanders) on a white background

Attended a book launch like no other at the Ironmongers' Company last night. I indexed the latest history of the Company earlier this year; last night, Penelope Hunting's book was launched by the Grenadier Guards beating the retreat at London's Guildhall, followed by supper at the Ironmongers' Hall.

Indexing Biographies In this post indexer W. Stephen Gilbert discusses one of the trickiest aspects of indexing biographical books: how to deal with index entries for the biographical subject, their works and activities.…

Indexing biographies can bring up some particular challenges. How do you deal with the subject of the book? Indexer W. Stephen Gilbert discusses biographical indexing approaches in our blog post

Another useful session this morning with my indexing colleagues #IndexSky

Conference 2025: ‘The Heart and Mind of Indexing’ The Society of Indexers 2025 conference will be an in-person residential conference at Edgbaston Park Hotel and Conference Centre at the University of Birmingham from Friday 19 September to Sunday 21 ...

Two weeks left to book for @indexers.bsky.social #SIConf25. With:
@carosanderson.bsky.social
@djbduncan.bsky.social
@tanyaizzard.bsky.social on AI
@closereadingie.bsky.social peer-review panel
@annkingdom.bsky.social and me on humour
plus more. Join us! #IndexSky
www.indexers.org.uk/conference-2...

This was a great discussion - reassuring to hear that everyone struggles with passing mentions. I wrote about passing mentions in scholarly texts on my blog: tanyaizzard.co.uk/2024/07/18/p...

David's advice on writing with indexing in mind was also useful - I wrote about this myself in a past blog post.

This was a really interesting session, particularly in terms of indexer neutrality and having to let go of those things in the index that you really love but you know aren't hugely relevant.

Nature Beyond Cure: Disabled Perspectives Books that explore nature and living with disability and illness from disability perspectives. No magical cures here!

I've made a new list on @bookshop.org of books that explore nature / walking / the outdoors by disabled, neurodivergent and chronically ill writers - Nature Beyond Cure - aka our own narratives are messy and complex. Do share! #BookSky #DisabledWriters
uk.bookshop.org/lists/nature...?

It's particularly interesting that ChatGPT couldn't identify absences or implicit meaning, and slightly appalling that it transformed the topic of Gender into Family...

This article, while not specifically about indexing, reveals a lot of the problems with attempting indexing using AI tools:

I'm looking forward to presenting at this year's conference, moving on from my previous work on indexing and AI to consider how indexers can respond to it.

Congratulations - really enjoyed following your journey!

Yes, me too. Makes it clear to the index user who you mean.

Very pleased to have written about the many limitations of AI for book indexing in the current open-access Catalogue & Index from @cilipmdg.bsky.social. Also contains a brief explanation of how human indexers work and the tech that we do find helpful. journals.cilip.org.uk/catalogue-an...

To quote myself: "without a detailed understanding of the text, it is not possible to know whether AI outputs are reliable, and so they cannot be relied upon to produce the level of comprehensiveness and accuracy required for a published index."

Coincidentally, I have an article out today in @cilipmdg.bsky.social's journal Catalog and Data on this very topic journals.cilip.org.uk/catalogue-an...

Bookings are now open for our 2025 Conference, The Heart and Mind of Indexing. In person, 19-21 September, at Writers’ Suite, Edgbaston Park Hotel and Conference Centre, University of Birmingham, UK. See the full programme and book your place at buff.ly/DMtUEAN

We found that AI tools - both general like #ChatGPT and research-specific like #Elicit - lack the reliability, relevancy and accuracy to summarise research for teachers. This is important because we have been sold the idea that AI will make research more accessible.

Congratulations, Chloe! A well deserved accolade.

AI chatbots (and tools based on them) don't perform well at indexing because they are predicting a likely index rather than analysing the text and making decisions on what to include. They also have accuracy and reliability issues, which is not what you want in an index.

Passing Mentions One of the most frequent queries indexers get from clients is “Why is this term not in the index?” In this post, indexer Tanya Izzard explains what passing mentions are, why we sometimes leave them…

A passing mention? In MY book? On our blog, indexer Tanya Izzard discusses passing or minor mentions in indexing, and why indexers sometimes have to leave things out