State of the art of published indexes

Despite the glamour of mechanized searching for needed information, there is still a real need for published indexes. These indexes are in effect miniature, portable information centers operating on a do‐it‐yourself basis. Published indexes have the important advantage of permitting browsing, which is highly essential when the searcher does not know exactly what he is looking for. They can also give needed information almost immediately because there is no waiting for search time on a computer. Once a book‐form index is acquired, its use costs nothing except time. The greatly increased output of published material in the past two decades has created new index‐publishing problems. In this state‐of‐the‐art survey, the emphasis is put on the new publishing techniques, new equipment, and innovations in index format that have been developed in attempts to solve these problems. Representative examples of each type of indexing venture are cited. The many other equally meritorious examples of new published indexes are omitted only because of space limitations.