[Genealib] Reprinted books without indexes

Tue Nov 28 09:45:07 EST 2006

When considering an unindexed book I must ask the same question Craig does
in point 3 "the question I have to ask is if this work should be available
even though it does not have an index. For every one person that says a book
without an index is not worth doing, I can find you five that appreciate
that it is in print."

If presented with a choice of purchasing an indexed or unindexed book, the
choice is obvious.  I'll even go out of my way, or pay more to get that
index.  If there just is no index, in some cases, you're doing your patron a
disservice in not providing the information found in the unindexed book.
Don't through the baby out with the bathwater!

In a perfect world, all genealogy books would be every name indexed.  But,
alas, we do not.

Paul Follett
Genealogy Librarian
Lawton Public Library
110 SW Fourth St.
Lawton, OK 73507
pfollett at cityof.lawton.ok.us
"Let us, before we die, gather up our heritage, and offer it to our
children."
                   Will Durant
                   The Story of Civilization

-----Original Message-----
From: genealib-bounces at mailman.acomp.usf.edu
[mailto:genealib-bounces at mailman.acomp.usf.edu]On Behalf Of Craig Scott
Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 9:29 PM
To: 'Librarians Serving Genealogists'
Subject: E: [Genealib] Reprinted books without indexes

I promised myself that I would not enter into this fray, but someone made
the mistake of wondering what publishers would have to say about it. Largely
because I agree that an index is a very important part of any genealogical
book I don't think we are the culprit, but we do and will continue to
publish books that sometimes will not contain indexes.

That said I would like to add some points to the conversation.

1) If you draw and quarter all of the publishers who fail to create an index
for a book, you will have no publishers left, eventually.

2) As I watch many genealogical publishers going out of business, cutting
back on production, laying off employees, and like me, just generally trying
to weather the current storm, I am reminded that the reason that I live in
this stress, is GREED. Yep, that one word would sum it all up.

3) If an author brings you a book and refuses to index it the publisher has
three options, publish it, reject it or pay someone to index it. We provide
our authors who will not index a book brochures from indexers, but still
some refuse to do it. If I pay someone to index a work I can forgo
publishing two to four other books that month. And those four have indexes.
T

3) The advice that the one can make more money from an indexed book vs. an
unindexed book is not something that I have ever experienced. Pricing of
books is usually a function of print cost. So an index page is worth as much
as any other page in the price calculation. So yes, more money can be made,
but not enough to make up for the cost of indexing (which explains why we
ask the author to provide the index, rather than do the indexing ourselves).

4) The advice that an indexed book is a better seller is also something that
I have not experienced. I have a warehouse full of fully indexed titles that
remain from the days when books were published in hardback and in runs of
500 or a 1000. Some have been in that warehouse or its predecessors for 15
years or more. In point of fact about 350 titles represent most of our
sales, and of the 2253 we have in print last year, we sold less than 3
copies of 1,000 titles (Heritage Books has always had a policy of doing
indexes so an index has, it would appear little to do with sales).

5) For those libraries who have determined not to purchase books unless they
have indexes I am reminded of those who will not purchase books unless they
are hardbacks. I have yet to see these attributes as a part of any
collection management policy, but then I have only seen a few. I can
understand that given that a book is available, one with and one without,
the indexed version might be a better choice.

6) If you have a problem with a publisher, you should tell them directly.
Having them wonder about why you don't order from them anymore doesn't' seem
to work, we come up with the wrong ideas instead of the right one.

We publish books with indexes, with some exceptions, and I don't feel like
the culprit here, maybe I am. But I have to say this about indexes, they are
a crutch that no real genealogist should rely on. The fact that something is
not in an index does not mean that there is not information about the person
of interest in the work. Personally, I don't trust them, I use them, but I
don't trust them. And to my mind they are hardly a reason to deny your
patrons access to a title. But the lack of an index is usually a reason for
frustration for me, and I can understand it in others.

C.

Craig R. Scott, CG
President and CEO
Heritage Books, Inc.
65 East Main Street
Westminster, MD 21157
800 876-6103
crscott at HeritageBooks.com

2266 books in print and growing. Visit www.HeritageBooks.com
-----Original Message-----
From: genealib-bounces at mailman.acomp.usf.edu
[mailto:genealib-bounces at mailman.acomp.usf.edu] On Behalf Of
espear at shareinet.net
Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 2:42 PM
To: Librarians Serving Genealogists
Cc: genealib at mailman.acomp.usf.edu
Subject: Re: [Genealib] Reprinted books without indexes

I guess that I would sum it up with one word - GREED!   The publishers
find an uncopywrited book that they believe that they can make money from.
 Never mind that they could probably make a lot more with a great index.
So they reproduce it and put it on the market.   One way to stop this is
to refuse to buy any books from these publishers.  This can be effective
especially if you have purchased from these publishers before and they
wonder why you have stopped buying from them.  If enough people did this
the un-indexed reprints would stop.

Elmer Spear, founder
Elmer's Genealogy Library
Madison, Florida

> Why do publishers reprint some books without adding indexes?  Also, why do
> genealogical publishers print new works without indexes?  I would be happy
> to pay more to make the information in these books easily accessible.
>
> Sharen Lee
> Live Oak Public Libraries
> Savannah, GA
> _______________________________________________
> genealib mailing list
> genealib at mailman.acomp.usf.edu
> http://mailman.acomp.usf.edu/mailman/listinfo/genealib
>

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