Stephanie McDonald
Northern News Services
Friday, April 20, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Jennifer Knowlan finds that she has to explain her job to everyone she meets. She has boiled it down to a two-sentence explanation: You know when you read a book and there is an index in the book? Someone had to create that index.

Knowlan is one of these indexers, what she describes as "one of the most under the radar jobs."

Knowlan worked as a public service librarian at the Yellowknife Library after graduating from Dalhousie University with a Master's degree in Library and Information Studies.

For the past year, she has worked as an indexer on a part-time basis with a partner.

The partnership was dissolved when Knowlan decided to dedicate herself to the business full-time.

This February she received her business license, and Indexter Information Services was launched. In her business proposal, Knowlan anticipated that 70 per cent of her business would be as a back-of-the-book indexer, with most projects coming from American publishers.

An index is generally the last step of producing a book.

Manuscripts will be e-mailed to Knowlan, with guidelines of how many pages are allotted for the index.

"Most indexers will scan a book once to get a scope of the work and the types of concepts that reappear," Knowlan said.

The book is read a second time in greater detail. An indexer may only be given four pages for a 500-page book.

"Even if the material is not what I would usually read, the process of providing access to information is exciting," she said.

The time it takes to create an index depends on how long a book is, how dense the material is, and how much space is given for the index, Knowlan said. In addition to indexing, Knowlan also provides information services for the local market.

She has already reorganized a small resource library in the city, and is able to catalogue books and documents, create searchable databases, and edit and proofread material.

"It's pretty scary to start a business," Knowlan said. "You don't know what's around the bend, but at the same time, anything is possible. You have the freedom of doing your own thing."

Knowlan was able to launch her business with the help of the Akaitcho Business Development Corporation. She also receives money from Employment Insurance.

"The funding is instrumental in allowing me to start the business."

Knowlan comes by the profession honestly, as her mother was a librarian.

"I always had an interest in being a librarian, and this branch of it suits me even better."