Indexers and XML: an overview of the opportunities

The profession of indexing and the technology of XML have only begun to realize their value to each other. First, it is important to distinguish two quite different types of indexing, closed-system indexing (such as traditional back-of-the-book indexing) and open-system indexing (generally used to classify documents in a collection), and to distinguish these from the indexing behind the ‘search’ function we take for granted on computers and theWeb. Through its ability to delineate the structure of information, to navigate that structured content, and to associate metadata with it, XML makes it possible to dramatically improve all three types of indexing and to enable them to work together in powerful and useful ways. Beyond simple ‘extracted’ or ‘embedded’ indexes, ‘integrated indexes’ use XML to associate indexes produced with professional standalone indexing software and the content being indexed at a very granular level.