Guidelines for Key Words?

[Geoff Hart]

Pat Egan wondered: <<This might seem like a simple matter...>>

If it were, there wouldn't be a profession named "Indexer". Anyone 
could do it. <g>

<<... but I am wondering if anyone on this list has had experience with 
protocols or guidelines for assigning key words to documents.>>

I've done a bit of indexing. I'm not a pro, but based on the feedback 
I've received, I am a pretty good amateur. The first thing you should 
do is get a good primer on indexing, such as the one in the Chicago 
Manual of Style, and summarize the key points for your authors. Things 
like "use the actual key word that appears in the document and provide 
at least one synonym". Keep this simple--list the five most important 
points, for example. Anything more and people won't read it. You could 
also consider providing training in indexing, but even so, provide the 
short list as a post-training reminder.

<<I am working with a group of document owners who have had a rather 
frustrating experience with a database that was supposed to facilitate 
document retrieval via key word searches. The document owners were 
given no guidance and the results were poor.>>

One thing that helps a lot is to develop a list of keywords, and keep 
expanding it as you add documents with new and different contents. This 
lets people pick words from a list if they lack inspiration and if a 
word already exists. (Indeed, if you're working within a database, it's 
easy to set up a "pick list" so they can choose existing words rather 
than having to type them and possibly introduce typos. If you're 
already working in a database, database solutions would work well; if 
not, simply maintain an alphabetical list in a Word file and make that 
available on the network.

Better still, find someone in your team who has good indexing skills 
and ask that person can assign the keywords--or to serve as the person 
who reviews and approves all keywords. If you have an editor in your 
group, they'd be a good choice for this; we editors are nuts for 
consistency, and since we get to see and review every document, we're a 
logical choice for this role. If you have a corporate librarian (not 
common, but I've always worked for research institutes with a library), 
ask them to take on this role. They can also provide expert advice on 
classifying and filing documents.

You'll also need to assign someone to periodically "clean" this 
database of keywords... less necessary if the person who creates it in 
the first place is an editor, but still necessary. Databases gradually 
accumulate garbage and inconsistencies, and need to be cleaned up. In a 
database, it's easy to generate a list of "keywords added since 
[date]", and focus on that list. When this person finds problems, they 
should also go to the original document that contains the problem 
keywords and fix that.

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Geoff Hart   ghart at videotron.ca
(try geoffhart at mac.com if you don't get a reply)
www.geoff-hart.com
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