Indexing is a passion and a delight for those who are suited to it. For some people it is a full-time career; for others, including editors, writers and librarians, it is an occasional task. This book contains practical information about the process of indexing as well as specific techniques for a wide range of areas, and has something for all information professionals.

Those of us who index for a living are acutely aware of developments in the information industry. The authors have been indexing since 1988, and have observed significant changes in the work we do, the people we do it for, and the way we do it. Software developments have included tools that have aided us in our work (specialised indexing software, computers and the web); tools that may assist publishers but make indexers' lives more difficult (embedded indexing); and tools that threaten to take our work away (automatic indexing and search engines). This book is intended as a companion for indexers through times of change. We provide advice on working well, and we assess the future of indexing, identifying positives and negatives.

There has recently been an explosion in the use of indexing techniques in areas such as intranet and website search and navigation – often under different names, and done by different people. There is also significant and growing overlap in the work done by records managers, museum curators, librarians and indexers, although there is less communication between these groups than might be expected.