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organizations
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Though I have
long
been working by myself in a home
office, I have not been working in isolation.
Here
are a few of the most continuous megalithic
influences in my life as a self-employed indexer, aside from clients.
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Macrex
Since
the days I had to give up alphabetizing with my
multi-colored index cards inside a variety of boxes that I
collected, I began my computer use with Macrex indexing software on an
AT&T desktop with a
blinky yellow green text on black screen, no graphics capacity,
and 35 MB of
disk space.
Over 25 years later, I am still
using Macrex as it
approaches Version 8, full of color, a modest hard disk space of
140 GB on my HP desktop, far beyond what Macrex needs, but now I use a
computer for far more than just Macrex.
Macrex
alphabetizes, formats, stores a variety of formats for different
presses, and prints to word processors or printers, to mention
only the simplest of its services. And that's not counting the
biggest service of all: the legendary Gale Rhoades as
U.S.
technical support person for Macrex and for computer tweaking in
general.
Though at first I resisted giving up
the
serenity of my desk to the humming and beeping of a computer, I no
longer sigh nostalgically for the days before I had to use a computer.
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ASI
Another link I
have
held to for 30 years or so is my membership in the The American
Society for Indexing.
It's been through many changes, and no matter
what they were (passionately fought over, at times), I always
felt in touch with the indexing world.
I have not been one
of the model members who volunteers, leads, and writes
continuously.
I have been quietly indexing,
while also maintaining steady membership, paying dues, reading,
occasionally writing, and attending a conference, seminar, or chapter
meeting now and then.
I found Macrex within the context of
ASI.
I've read every issue of ASI's newsletter Key Words as well as other
publications that came to my attention through ASI,
I subscribe to ASI
listservs.
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email discussion groups
Even more than
from ASI, I have learned from the many indexers who
subscribe to a growing collection of indexers' email discussion groups,
starting with Index-L,
which gushes so voluminously, I was inspired to establish
separate addresses for group email discussions, which eventually
included groups such as scholarly indexing and web
indexing forums, Macrex
lists, and
the FREELANCE
listserv.
When I first subscribed to these, I
felt I had to read
everything, but by now I've learned to use the delete
button and select just the topics that grab my
attention.
I can't begin to describe the
unbelievable
amount of information I've absorbed from these online groups, not just
about
indexing but
also about subjects such as other
computer programs indexers use, computer and other communications
hardware, ergonomic
office
furniture, Internet services, taxes, and how to clean pet hair
out of every conceivable place.
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