New Officers for 2008/2009

The following have been elected to serve as MSA Officers for the fiscal year May 1, 2008 through April 30, 2009.

Suzi Kaplan, MSA Chair, has lived in Bethesda, Maryland for fourteen years, most of those spent as the COO of her one husband, two children and a dog family unit, with a heavy rotation of volunteer activities on the side. Suzi has an MSLIS, a MA and a BA. As a special Librarian her subject expertise included electric utilities and fuels, telecommunications, aerospace, applied sciences, engineering, business and state and federal law and regulation -- quite a switch from the anthropology, geology and museum studies of her college career. As a special librarian, her work included writing various user aids, including thesauri and indexes. Suzi says the latter were her secret pleasure, almost as good as chocolate. When she decided to go back to work, the first thing she did was join ASI. As professionals, Suzi believes being involved in and supporting our professional organizations is key to our individual and collective success.

Connie Binder, MSA Chair-Elect, of Laurel, Maryland, and has been a freelance indexer since 1998. A member of ASI for many years, only recently has Connie begun attending national and local conferences, workshops and meetings. She has found the continuing education and social networking opportunities tremendously rewarding. After her experience, Connie wants to ensure other indexers get involved in their chapter and in meeting with one another sooner, rather than later. Connie holds a Bachelor's degree in Anthropology from Michigan State University and an MLS in Library and Information Services from the University of Maryland.

Becky Hornyak, MSA Treasurer, has been indexing for ten years, eight of them as a full-time freelancer. She has lived in Virginia, near Washington DC, almost five years, and served on the Nominations Committee for the MSA chapter in 2005. She is from Indiana, where she was previously active in the Heartland Chapter, serving as its secretary, vice-president and president. Becky edited ASI's book, 'Indexing Specialties: Psychology,' and has presented at ASI annual conferences.

Bonnie Hanks, MSA Secretary, is a freelance indexer in Virginia where she lives on a farm near Charlottesville with her husband, horses and dogs. Before becoming a professional indexer, Bonnie was a school Librarian and a RN. Bonnie has a diploma in nursing from St. Luke’s School of Nursing, an AB in English Literature from Duke University, and an MS in Information Sciences from the University of Tennessee.

Usability Study Indexes

The two indexes presented here are in the process of being vetted for usability testing. In order to test usability we need to create indexes that are as trouble-free as possible. Both indexes were created by multiple authors for the same text, Identity by Design, a National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) text being published by HarperCollins in March.

One is a long version with a fair amout of detail; the other is less detailed. Please have a look at either or both, and send comments/criticisms to kmertes@hotmail.com as soon as feasible. Check back here for a deadline.

For copyright and sales purposes we cannot mount the text online, but if you wish you can purchase the book from the Smithsonian Institution or NMAI, online or in person, when it becomes available.

Files for download are in RTF format:

• index for usability study; long version
• index for usability study; short version

For background on this study, see the December 2006 issue of The Capital Indexer.