Index

An index provides a list of content-elements in a document in a certain order (alphabetical, systematical or chronological). The elements may be authors,  titles or subjects). The index of a printed bibliography often represents the other possible ways the bibliography could have been organized. 

An index may be either a part of a document, for example, back-of the book-index, or an independent publication such as "Index Medicus", "Science Citation Index" and "Bibliographic Index"
 

"In publishing, an index is a guide to the contents of a book, publication, or multimedia collection. It is prepared for the reader, to help the reader more quickly and easily find information. An index is not simply a list of the major terms in a publication. Rather, it is an organized map of the contents of a book, arranged to make the contents clearly visible and comprehensible to the reader. " (Wikipedia, 2005)
 

Literature:

Enser, P. G. B. (1985). Automatic Classification of Book Material Represented by Back-of-the-book index. Journal of Documentation, 41, 135-155.
 

Spang­Hanssen, H. (1989). Registre på Brugernes niveau. IN: Orden i papirerne - en hilsen til J. B. Friis­Hansen. Redigeret af Ole Harbo & Leif Kajberg. København, Danmarks biblioteksskole. (Pp. 149-155).

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2005). Index (publishing).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_%28publishing%29

See also: Indexing (Lifeboat for KO); Order

Birger Hjørland

Last edited: 02-05-2006

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