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Pat Egan wondered: <<This might seem like a simple matter...>>
If it were, there wouldn't be a profession named "Indexer". Anyone
could do it. <g>
<<... but I am wondering if anyone on this list has had experience with
protocols or guidelines for assigning key words to documents.>>
I've done a bit of indexing. I'm not a pro, but based on the feedback
I've received, I am a pretty good amateur. The first thing you should
do is get a good primer on indexing, such as the one in the Chicago
Manual of Style, and summarize the key points for your authors. Things
like "use the actual key word that appears in the document and provide
at least one synonym". Keep this simple--list the five most important
points, for example. Anything more and people won't read it. You could
also consider providing training in indexing, but even so, provide the
short list as a post-training reminder.
<<I am working with a group of document owners who have had a rather
frustrating experience with a database that was supposed to facilitate
document retrieval via key word searches. The document owners were
given no guidance and the results were poor.>>
One thing that helps a lot is to develop a list of keywords, and keep
expanding it as you add documents with new and different contents. This
lets people pick words from a list if they lack inspiration and if a
word already exists. (Indeed, if you're working within a database, it's
easy to set up a "pick list" so they can choose existing words rather
than having to type them and possibly introduce typos. If you're
already working in a database, database solutions would work well; if
not, simply maintain an alphabetical list in a Word file and make that
available on the network.
Better still, find someone in your team who has good indexing skills
and ask that person can assign the keywords--or to serve as the person
who reviews and approves all keywords. If you have an editor in your
group, they'd be a good choice for this; we editors are nuts for
consistency, and since we get to see and review every document, we're a
logical choice for this role. If you have a corporate librarian (not
common, but I've always worked for research institutes with a library),
ask them to take on this role. They can also provide expert advice on
classifying and filing documents.
You'll also need to assign someone to periodically "clean" this
database of keywords... less necessary if the person who creates it in
the first place is an editor, but still necessary. Databases gradually
accumulate garbage and inconsistencies, and need to be cleaned up. In a
database, it's easy to generate a list of "keywords added since
[date]", and focus on that list. When this person finds problems, they
should also go to the original document that contains the problem
keywords and fix that.
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