Ruth Martin Indexing
Freelance professional book indexing and legal tabling services.
Hello, and welcome to my website! I am a freelance, professional book indexer and legal tabler. I have worked as part of Thomson Reuters’ Legal Journals Index team since 2004, so law is my specialist area. However, I have also indexed social sciences, economics and healthcare titles. A list of some of the titles I have indexed is included here, and the indexes themselves can be viewed using Amazon’s ‘Look Inside’ facility.
In 2021, I won the Institute of Certified Indexers’ Purple Pen Indexing Contest for my index to All manner of ingenuity and industry: A bio-bibliography of Dr Thomas Willis (1621-1675), by Alastair Compston.
After graduating from Oxford University with a First in English Language and Literature, I trained as a librarian at Liverpool John Moores University. I then worked in the library of a large solicitors’ firm before becoming the Information Manager of a local law society and later of an independent healthcare publisher.
I love indexing not only because I have a tidy mind and enjoy making order out of chaos, but also because it is a highly creative occupation. That might seem strange, since the indexer is entirely constrained by the author’s text, but there is a distinct creative challenge in translating complex ideas into concise yet meaningful headings and then linking them to other ideas to create a coherent whole. I often think that indexes are not written but emerge.
These days, I live in the Gers, a remote and beautiful part of South-West France. Walks in the countryside are the perfect antidote to long hours spent in front of my computer.
In 2021, I won the Institute of Certified Indexers’ Purple Pen Indexing Contest for my index to All manner of ingenuity and industry: A bio-bibliography of Dr Thomas Willis (1621-1675), by Alastair Compston.
After graduating from Oxford University with a First in English Language and Literature, I trained as a librarian at Liverpool John Moores University. I then worked in the library of a large solicitors’ firm before becoming the Information Manager of a local law society and later of an independent healthcare publisher.
I love indexing not only because I have a tidy mind and enjoy making order out of chaos, but also because it is a highly creative occupation. That might seem strange, since the indexer is entirely constrained by the author’s text, but there is a distinct creative challenge in translating complex ideas into concise yet meaningful headings and then linking them to other ideas to create a coherent whole. I often think that indexes are not written but emerge.
These days, I live in the Gers, a remote and beautiful part of South-West France. Walks in the countryside are the perfect antidote to long hours spent in front of my computer.
