Recent Projects

Let me tell you about a very interesting project I recently did for one of my nonprofit clients. The client is a foundation. They regularly clip and collect articles of interest to support their research projects and professional development activities. After collecting these articles for a number of years—first in actual paper file folders and then in online folders—they were frustrated as to how to actually access them. The collection was over 200 articles; they were scattered in different staff members file folders and not titled consistently. It was a mess in its existing form, despite the best intentions of everyone who contributed to the collection.

When they approached me with a request to help them "organize" their online library, I immediately knew that an index would be their ideal solution. With the help of David Ream and his two software products Mapper and HTMLPrep, I was able to develop a hyperlinked index that is super-easy to use. Staff only has to remember how to use the alphabet!

All the 200+ articles are in PDF versions. The index pages are in HTML. All documents live in a single directory on the client's network so that they are accessible to all staff members. A staff member merely has to go to the index to find the topic he or she is looking for (e.g., an author's name, a specific geographical location, a publication name, a nonprofit organization name, a reserach topic such as education, etc.). When they find the topic, they click on a hyperlink next to that topic and the PDF containing that topic opens in a new window. (The PDFs are fully searchable.)

This is so helpful to users who may remember just a piece of an article that is of interest, such as it was in the New York Times. With an index, they will be successful in finding what they are looking for because there are so many access points from the index to each PDF article.

My client is thrilled with the result and has plans for the online library's continued growth. It will be an incredible resource for current and future staff, increasing their efficiency in finding what they are looking for and in managing what can feel like an overwhelming amount of information. Indexes can save you time and money, and reduce stress and frustration. I bet you can find a good application for such an index!

For you indexers who are curious as to the details behind the hyperlinked index, I used my SKY indexing software to capture all the index topics and I used an article-specific five-digit code number for the locator. Then Dave's products helped map the code numbers to the PDF articles, and HTMLPrep created the hyperlinked index pages.