Dear Mary,

My RA interpreted more of the information from our Publication Office (I don't speak Japanese well at all) and I have learned that a budget request can be made for

(i) a standard page rate (which is arbitratry and based on writing fees paid to certain kinds of contributing author for certain museum publications), or

(ii) and expected cost based on a full quote by professional editor/translator or similar (indexing fits this category).

This means you can provide me with quotes based on your usual costing for the work, and then I can discover how much the museum is willing to offer. Our office has had some experience of indexing, but not with the help of professional indexers. I am keen to introduce the practice of professional indexing to our publications department.

Thanks, Peter

I would be willing to help with indexing. If you can supply a copy of the draft index and any of the material to be indexed (a chapter or paper, perhaps?), I can give you a quote on cost.

I am currently editing a volume with 16 contributors, approx. 200 pages, and 60,000 words.

The subject matter concerns the history of a food plant, viewed from the perspectives of archaeology, linguistics, ethnography, natural history, and social history.

I would like to discuss the likely costs of indexing this volume using a combination of machine indexing, manual indexing, and my editorial input.

A short draft index, for scoping purposes, has been prepared, and can be sent to interested parties.

Deadline for finding a contractor is late December. Deadline for an index is probably late January. The book will be published before the end of March 2012.

Please contact me by reply to this message. Thanks.

Dr Peter Matthews, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan