Presentations and Publications

Teaching || Presentations || Publications

Teaching

Indexing courses

I've been teaching indexing for various institutions and organizations since 1997. See my Classes, Workshops, and Seminars web page for more information.

Internet literacy

From Fall 1995 through Summer 1997, I taught faculty development classes on "Internet literacy" at Pierce College in Lakewood, Washington. We offered workshops in everything from email to electronic searching to FTP to Web site design.

Internet basics

I've been teaching workshops called "Beyond Email" and "Email and Beyond" since 1993. These were geared toward librarians and library staff, and lasted anywhere from two to four hours. In the summer of 1995, I branched out by working with a Community College presenting these at a local fair.

Presentations

Co-Presenter, "Which Path Did You Follow? Exploring Our Index Decision-Making Processes" Mid- and South-Atlantic chapter, American Society of Indexers, 29 March 2008 in Bethesda, MD

Participants indexed a document before we met. During the workshop, we discussed the variety of approaches indexers used when writing their indexes.

Presenter, "Sky Index, introduction to" for Deutschen Netzwerk der Indexer (German Network of Indexers) meeting during the Frankfurt Book Fair - the biggest book fair on the planet - on 11 October 2007 in Frankfurt Germany.

In my first European speaking engagement (wow), I gave attendees a detailed demonstration of Sky Index Professional software and we discussed how it can be incorporated into their work so that they could achieve a more efficient workflow. Download a PDF version of handouts from this presentation.

Presenter, "Sky Index, using macros in" at Pacific Northwest Chapter American Society of Indexers, 29 September 2007 in Vancouver, OR.

During this workshop, I taught participants how to use macros with Sky Index Professional and I led small group, hands-on macro exercises.

Co-Presenter, "Exploring Index Design: Intermediate & Advanced Indexing Workshop" Colorado chapter, American Society of Indexers, 21 October 2006 in Denver, CO

Participants indexed a document before we met. During the workshop, we discussed the variety of approaches indexers used when writing their indexes.

Presenter, "Dancing on cobwebs: decision-making in our indexes" Joint Conference of Indexing and Abstracting Society of Canada / Société canadienne pour l'analyse de documents and American Society of Indexers, 15 June 2006 in Toronto, ON

Participants indexed a document before we met. During the workshop, we discussed the variety of approaches indexers used when writing their indexes.

Co-Presenter, "SKY Index Shortcuts: Efficient Editing" Joint Conference of Indexing and Abstracting Society of Canada / Société canadienne pour l'analyse de documents and American Society of Indexers, 17 June 2006 in Toronto, ON

Take better advantage of SKY Index Professional's editing features. In this workshop, Kamm Schreiner and I will explain techniques for using your software in more powerful ways. This includes using advanced Find/Replace options; understanding and working with Translations; creating Acronyms; customizing index style and format; and more. Through demos and active participation in small and large group exercises, attendees will walk away with practical tips for using SKY Index more efficiently.

Co-Presenter, "Solving SKY Index Puzzles: Connecting with Macros and Pattern Matching " Joint Conference of Indexing and Abstracting Society of Canada / Société canadienne pour l'analyse de documents and American Society of Indexers, 17 June 2006 in Toronto, ON

In the right situations, macros and pattern matching can save a tremendous amount of time. This workshop, taught by Kamm Schreiner and I, will help you learn how to use these features and, even more importantly, when to use them. There will be an emphasis on class participation through use of practical, real world examples. Attendees will walk away from this workshop with the ability to put macros and pattern matching to use in their own indexing.

Panel member "Embedded Indexing" at Pacific Northwest Chapter American Society of Indexers, 1 April 2006 in Eugene, OR

I described and demonstrated features in Sky Index Professional that assist indexers who are creating embedded indexes.

Presenter, "SKY Index Shortcuts," American Society of Indexers' Annual Conference, June 2005 in Pasadena, CA

This workshop focused on sharing tips and tricks for using SKY Index Pro.

Presenter/Discussion Leader, "Exploring Index Design," Pacific Northwest Chapter American Society of Indexers, 2 April 2005 in Eugene, OR

Participants indexed a document before we met. During the workshop, we discussed the variety of approaches indexers used when writing their indexes.

Presenter, "Intermediate/Advanced Indexing" Indexing and Abstracting Society of Canada / Société canadienne pour l'analyse de documents, 3 June 2004 in Calgary, AB

To explore and compare multiple solutions to difficult indexing issues presented in "Indecent and internationally illegal: The death penalty against child offenders" by Amnesty International. Participants indexed this text before we met. During the seminar, we discussed various options presented in the index for providing access to concepts in the text. Read more about this seminar/workshop.

Panel member, "USDA Indexing Courses," Joint Conference of Indexing and Abstracting Society of Canada / Société canadienne pour l'analyse de documents and American Society of Indexers, 20 June 2003 in Vancouver, BC

I was on a panel discussing the indexing courses offered by the Graduate School of the USDA's National Independent Study Center.

Panel member, Pacific Northwest Chapter American Society of Indexers, "Speed Plus Quality," 28 September 2002 in Eugene, OR

I was on a panel of indexers discussing speed of writing indexes and its relationship to quality.

Presenter, "Looking at Index Usability from Different Viewpoints," American Society of Indexers-Golden Gate Chapter, 27 April 2002 in Santa Clara, CA

This was another presentation much like the "Intermediate Indexing" workshop for IASC's 3 June 2004 conference.

Presenter, "Indexing Challenges, Multiple Solutions," Joint Meeting of Indexing and Abstracting Society of Canada / Société canadienne pour l'analyse de documents and Pacific Northwest Chapter American Society of Indexers, workshop, 5 May 2001 in Seattle, WA

This was the first time I presented the workshop described above. A brief description of this presentation (and the entire conference) can be read on the PNW/ASI web site.

Presenter, "Introduction to Indexing and Editing Indexes", Pacific Northwest Chapter American Society of Indexers, 24 July 1999 in Richland, WA

This was a brief, one-day workshop geared towards potential and beginning indexers who already had some idea of the skills necessary for creating professional quality indexes, but who wanted group discussions, guidance through a practice exercise, and a group exercise in which we compared their indexes.

Guest Speaker, Graduate School of Library & Information Science class on Indexing, University of Washington, October 1998 in Seattle, WA

I spoke to this class about training options for indexers and about indexing as a career. They also asked quite a few questions about the process and daily grind of indexing.

Discussion Leader, "Web Page Design and Maintenance" Roundtable, American Society of Indexers' Annual Conference, June 1998 in Seattle, WA

As is obvious from the title, I led this roundtable discussion on web design issues.

Discussion Leader, "Chapter Leaders" Meeting and "Web Sites" Roundtable, American Society of Indexers' Annual Conference, June 1998 in Seattle, WA

Leaders of ASI Chapters have their own gathering at the ASI national conferences, and during the 1998 meeting, I led this roundtable discussion on web design issues.

Presenter, "Introduction to Indexing", Mid-Valley Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication, February 1998 in Eugene, OR

STC asked me to prepare a short presentation on technical indexing, during which I discussed editing technical indexes using a software manual index as an example.

Guest Speaker, Library & Information Technology class on Indexing, Lake Washington Technical College, "Introduction to Indexing", April 1998 in Kirkland, WA

I spoke to this class about indexing as a career. They had studied indexing (theory and practice), but they also wanted to talk with a real indexer about what indexing is like as a career.

Guest Speaker, Library & Information Technology class on Indexing, Lake Washington Technical College, "Introduction to Indexing", November 1997 in Kirkland, WA

This presentation was similar to the above.

Guest Speaker, Library & Information Technology class on Indexing, Lake Washington Technical College, "Introduction to Indexing", February 1997 in Kirkland, WA

This presentation was similar to the above.

Presenter, "Web Page Development" Workshop, American Society of Indexers' Annual Conference, June 1996 in Denver, CO

Jan Wright and I created this half-day workshop during which we taught web page layout, site design, and basic HTML tags. By the end of the session, all participants had disk copies of web pages they created.

Presenter, "Indexers on the Internet", Pacific Northwest Chapter American Society of Indexers, April 1996 in Bellevue, WA

This was a joint presentation with Jan Wright in which we discussed the following: How will email change your business? What is INDEX-L? What software do you need to get started? What should you look for in software? How do you get connected? What questions should you ask potential providers? Do you need a Web Page? How do you go about creating a Web page?

Presenter, "Marketing on the Internet", Golden Gate Chapter American Society of Indexers, January 1996 in Emeryville, CA

As a panelist at this discussion, I talked about "Marketing on the Internet": why I created a web site, what's involved in creating a site, what are some maintenance issues, and how a web presence has affected my business. An online copy of the presentation outline is available.

Publications

Inside Indexing: The Decision-Making Process

Inside Indexing, a book I co-authored with Sherry Smith, is about the decision-making process of indexing. It serves as a window into the minds of two indexers as we both indexed Eben Fodor's text, Better Not Bigger: How to Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve Your Community,.

"Indexing classes offered by the Graduate School (USDA)" Fall 2007 Information - Wissenschaft & Praxis the journal for the German Society for Information Science (DGI).

This was a special indexing-focused,English-languge issue. Abstract: "This article provides an overview of the two indexing courses offered by the Graduate School (USDA), which teach several hundred students from around the world every year. These two courses are the most popular indexing classes in the United States and until recently were the only practice-oriented, self-paced indexing classes in the English-speaking world."

"Library faculty continue to do outstanding work" October 17, 2005 Update (newsletter for faculty and staff of the Pierce College District).

I was interviewed for an article in Update that described recent books written by two library faculty. I was interviewed about my experience co-authoring Inside Indexing and Kathy Swart discussed co-authoring of On Becoming a Productive University: Strategies for Reducing Costs and Increasing Quality in Higher Education.

"How do I index thee? Indexers count the ways" in Keywords: the newsletter of the American Society of Indexers. This two-part article was published in the April-June and October-December 2004 issues.

Inspired by an old article in The Indexer called "Six Ways We Work" (v.20 n.2), I wrote this article about the variety in the processes of professional indexers with contributions from several other indexers.

"About Us", Summer 2001 PNW Chapter News (newsletter of the Pacific Northwest Chapter, American Society of Indexers).

This regular feature of the PNW/ASI newsletter includes questions posed to members and their answers.

"Answers and Insights", Summer 2001 PNW Chapter News (newsletter of PNW/ASI).

This is the same regular feature (under a different title) of the PNW/ASI newsletter that includes questions posed to members and their answers.

"Statistical Snapshot of Our Membership", Spring 2000 PNW Chapter News (newsletter of PNW/ASI).

This is the same regular feature of the PNW/ASI newsletter that includes questions posed to members and their answers.

"How Did You Get Here? The Origins of Several Indexers" by Mary Ratcliffe, Fall 1999 PNW Chapter News (newsletter of the Pacific Northwest Chapter, American Society of Indexers).

As the title indicates, Mary Ratcliffe interviewed several indexers and shared their descriptions of how they heard about indexing, learned how to index, and landed their first clients.

"Statistical Snapshot of Our Membership", Fall 1999PNW Chapter News (newsletter of PNW/ASI).

This is the same regular feature of the PNW/ASI newsletter that includes questions posed to members and their answers.

"The Underappreciated Art of Indexing" by Annette Young, May 1999 The Write Stuff Contractor Community Site.

Annette Young, an Indexer for the Encarta group at Microsoft, interviewed me for background information included in this article which was mounted on a restricted web site and as such is unavailable to those without an account (sorry).

"Statistical Snapshot of Our Membership", Summer 1999PNW Chapter News (newsletter of PNW/ASI).

This is the same regular feature of the PNW/ASI newsletter that includes questions posed to members and their answers.

"Statistical Snapshot of Our Membership", Spring 1999PNW Chapter News (newsletter of PNW/ASI).

This is the same regular feature of the PNW/ASI newsletter that includes questions posed to members and their answers.

"Kari Kells: Portrait of an Indexer" (interview by Fran Smith), Fall 1998 PNW Chapter News (newsletter of PNW/ASI).

Fran Smith, a friend and colleague, interviewed me for this publication's regular column featuring one member of the PNW chapter of ASI. An online copy of this article is now available.

"Statistical Snapshot of Our Membership", Fall 1998 PNW Chapter News (newsletter of PNW/ASI).

This is the same regular feature of the PNW/ASI newsletter that includes questions posed to members and their answers.

"Statistical Snapshot of Our Membership", Spring 1998 PNW Chapter News (newsletter of PNW/ASI).

This is the same regular feature of the PNW/ASI newsletter that includes questions posed to members and their answers.

"ABCs of Indexing: Balancing Business with Life" (contributor), Jan/Feb 1998 Keywords: the newsletter of the American Society of Indexers.

"ABCs of Indexing" is a regular column in Keywords, and this particular issue dealt with how freelance indexers balance their business responsibilities with their personal lives (which most freelancers struggle with every day).

"Inside the indispensable index", October 1997 (v.2 #10/19) SPAN Connection: the official newsletter of the Small Publishers Association of North America.

Many small publishers don't know where to begin when they need to include an index in one of their books. In this article, I suggested ways of finding reputable indexers, discussed the kinds of questions they should ask potential indexers, and explained some questions indexers would ask them.

"Marketing on the World Wide Web: Selling without Hustling", March/April 1996 Keywords: the newsletter of the American Society of Indexers.

This article discusses just what the title says -- how to use the Web as a marketing tool for a freelance indexing business. An online copy of this article is now available.

QuickTips, ongoing for Pierce College Library.

I create and maintain a series of handouts addressing user needs at Pierce College Library in Lakewood and Puyallup, Washington.

Contact Kari

Copyright ©, Kari Kells.