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The book index can do some things that full text search can't do, it's true. But full-text search can also do a great many things the "back of the book" style i

The book index can do some things that full text search can't do, it's true. But full-text search can also do a great many things the "back of the book" style index can't do, especially when quality of back-of-the-book indexes varies highly (generally correlated to how much you could spend on paying skilled expert(s) to create them, and always has; it's just that publishers used to invest more in them, at least sometimes). If you could only have full-text-search or back-of-the-book index, which would you pick? It doesn't matter, cause you don't have a choice. I disagree with article that it "doesn't need saving", if the author meant that it's future is secure. The back-of-the-book index is dying, those that remain are seldom of much quality. The expertise and skill and methodologies of creating manual indexes will soon be lost. I am glad some are trying to document the back-of-the-book index as a technology, before it's gone.

marvindanig 5y ago
There are some things that both a book index and even full text search cannot solve. For example, if the teacher asks why in the Pride and Prejudice does Elizabeth lose temper on Mr. Darcy?, those smart-on-the-surface solutions can't take you anywhere. On the other hand my friend from the other school can easily tell me to go to page number 432 on the book to find the exact answer because labeled pagination has reference accessibility [1] along with random access. [1] https://bubblin.io/blog/referential-accessibility https://bubblin.io/blog/referential-accessibility
- saimiam 5y ago
  Do works of fiction have indexes? They may have a table of contents with each chapter name sort of indexing into events in the book - in which case you’d look for a chapter whose name hints at Elizabeth getting angry with mr. D’arcy. Indexes are more suited for facts and figured.
  - twic 5y ago
    Some do, Pale Fire probably being the most notable: https://www.theindexer.org/files/20-4/20-4_209.pdf https://www.theindexer.org/files/20-4/20-4_209.pdf
    - saimiam 5y ago
      This was a fascinating read. Thank you for sharing. Makes me want to read Pale Fire. As an aside, i learnt from reading this that his name is Nabokov, not Nabakov!
- HALtheWise 5y ago
  I've found myself accomplishing "referential accessibility" for ebooks by simply picking out a few words from the start of a sentence and asking someone to search for it. Unlike page numbers, they are consistent across multiple printings, and can point to a specific location much more easily (second sentence in the third paragraph on page 231 is terrible). Overall, it seems to work reasonably well.

marvindanig 5y ago

There are some things that both a book index and even full text search cannot solve. For example, if the teacher asks why in the Pride and Prejudice does Elizabeth lose temper on Mr. Darcy?, those smart-on-the-surface solutions can't take you anywhere. On the other hand my friend from the other school can easily tell me to go to page number 432 on the book to find the exact answer because labeled pagination has reference accessibility [1] along with random access. [1] https://bubblin.io/blog/referential-accessibility https://bubblin.io/blog/referential-accessibility

saimiam 5y ago
Do works of fiction have indexes? They may have a table of contents with each chapter name sort of indexing into events in the book - in which case you’d look for a chapter whose name hints at Elizabeth getting angry with mr. D’arcy. Indexes are more suited for facts and figured.
- twic 5y ago
  Some do, Pale Fire probably being the most notable: https://www.theindexer.org/files/20-4/20-4_209.pdf https://www.theindexer.org/files/20-4/20-4_209.pdf
  - saimiam 5y ago
    This was a fascinating read. Thank you for sharing. Makes me want to read Pale Fire. As an aside, i learnt from reading this that his name is Nabokov, not Nabakov!
HALtheWise 5y ago
I've found myself accomplishing "referential accessibility" for ebooks by simply picking out a few words from the start of a sentence and asking someone to search for it. Unlike page numbers, they are consistent across multiple printings, and can point to a specific location much more easily (second sentence in the third paragraph on page 231 is terrible). Overall, it seems to work reasonably well.