Hometown
Kansas City, Missouri
Undergraduate education
Bachelor’s degree in history, philosophy, and humanities (honors program), University of Kansas
Employer
Potomac Indexing, LLC
Job title
Indexer, Founder
Start date
About 20 years ago
Primary job responsibilities
Indexers all develop primary subject areas based upon subject knowledge and also indexing style. I index mostly books on religious subjects. About 10 years ago I discovered a definite need for indexers of religious books coupled with a dearth of willing indexers. I am now an expert in subject indexing, name indexing, and also scripture and ancient sources indexing. There are very few indexers prepared for scripture indexing. The best practices for scripture indexing are located on our company website.
There are also different types of indexing including standard back of the book indexing and embedded indexing.
Describe a project that best illustrates your job.
We provide the indexes for the proceedings of the UN Security Council. I don’t actually perform the indexing. I am not an expert in either the subject matter or the embedded indexing required. My role was to set up the working relationship in the first place with the UN and to keep it going as their staff there has changed over the years. They can see that we are supplying the best possible product. My ongoing role is to find the best possible indexer for this difficult job in addition to working with UN staff. Those contacting and administrative skills have a direct link to what I learned in my studies for the public affairs degree.
Recently I was able to provide a pro bono service (with total support of my business partners) of working on an index to Project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation. I worked with other indexers to provide an honest index to that 900 page document. I indexed several chapters and then assisted the indexer primarily responsible by reviewing the final index.
Interestingly, the Rule of Three applies to my choice of primary subject areas: I began as an indexer of computer books. Our company was set up to be the primary indexer for Microsoft but then Microsoft management decided to discontinue Microsoft Press. And there are not many computer books published any more. So I moved on to one of the university presses. And then I found the subject area of religious publications.
How do you use what you learned at La Follette on the job?
The public affairs degree helped me obtain my first job in the federal government. The library director at the Federal Trade Commission who wanted to hire me requested a librarian with two masters degrees. It might have also helped that I was a veteran of Vietnam. So at least I understood federal budgeting to some degree. After I began my job at the FTC, I took courses in business law, statistics, accounting, and legal bibliography. But the degree got my foot in the door.
Which experiences and skills helped you get your job?
I realized in library school back in 1970 that I would immediately become some type of administrator as soon as I became a full-fledged librarian. But at that time administration was only taught in library school to PhD students which seemed backwards to me since most of the PhD students there wanted to get away from administration. So I looked through the university catalog of courses and found public affairs. I set up an appointment and met with Clara Penniman who thought that a double masters degree would be a good idea. She also had a Ford Foundation Fellowship available. The Library School degree program has changed considerably as has the public affairs degree. I still think it would not hurt to set up a partnership with future librarians and archivists with an interest in public affairs.
Most rewarding La Follette School experience
My research project in public affairs was very interesting. Remember that I was doing this research before computers. I found records in the Wisconsin Historical Society of a public agency of the state of Wisconsin that included its birth, its bureaucratic existence, and its slow death when no longer needed. It was all there, but I was not sure what to do with my findings. The agency was called the Wisconsin Library Bureau or something close to that. The mission of the agency was to take books for reading out to the hinterlands of Wisconsin. Perhaps a better approach would have been to find other similar agencies. Most likely such agencies would be easier to find now that archival records have, I hope, been computerized.
Honors or awards earned after La Follette
I served as Board Member, Treasurer, VP, and President of the American Society for Indexing. I represented the Society at two meetings in China, one in Shanghai and one in Beijing. During the second trip I was asked to speak to the librarians at the Communist Party Library, their equivalent to the Library of Congress here.
Anything else?
The big lesson that I can pass to current students is the knowledge that a masters degree is just a ticket to get you into the door. Life after that is a continuing process of learning new things and sharpening what you thought you already knew.
I have traveled all over the U.S. and to many other countries as both a librarian and as an indexer. I was in Lughansk, Ukraine in 2014 when the Russians first invaded. I had to escape through the Donetsk airport which became the Ukrainian Alamo. Then I returned later to spend at least one week in Bucha where the Russians recently massacred many citizens. I indexed a book there about Russian/Ukrainian Evangelicals who tried to help others during the Stalin years when they had nothing. They were truly blessed people.
Favorite book
War and Peace: once I pick it up, I cannot put it down. Books by Bob Woodward. You will find my name in his last two books. I had the chance to meet with him in person once. He exudes trustworthiness. I was ready to tell him anything but he just wanted to know that we were good indexers which did not take him long to figure out.
People would be surprised to know that I …
Am generally not that talkative. But I have lots of stories to tell. And lots of accumulated wisdom about working in a bureaucracy and also about setting up a business.