"Kari Kells: Portrait of an Indexer"

Interview by Fran Smith
for PNW/ASI Chapter News, Fall 1998

Many an entrepreneurial wordsmith is lured by the call of the wild indexer. Kari Kells heard the call, and has created a lifestyle in tune with her independent spirit. Kari runs her business, Index West, from a Olympia cottage, and teaches indexing on the side. To maintain contact with colleagues and users, she serves as part-time library faculty in the Reference Department for Highline Community College. One of ASI/PNW's founding members, she services this year as the Chapter's chairperson. Kari is highly respected for the perfectionism she brings to each indexing assignment and for her willingness to share her knowledge and skills with others.

Kari was born to index, but did not discover this until grad school at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. A cancelled course led to the substitution of an Indexing and Abstracting course. During the first class, the teacher lectured about her lifetime fascination with putting things in order, and described her compulsive method of organizing family photos in a shoebox with labels:

Family, mom

Family, sister, Katherine

Pets, Fido

Vacation, 1966

Vacation, 1967

etc.

This revelation was life-changing for Kari, who found in this teacher a kindred spirit who would understand her urge to sort M&Ms by color, and peas by size, before eating them. Kari says, "I have to categorize everything. I think, hear and see in categories." She realized that her most eccentric qualities made her a natural indexer.

After receiving her MS-LIS, Kari moved to Seattle. A stint as [a] reference librarian at the University of Washington established that the role of librarian as teacher and helper is fulfilling, but the structure of the work is not. Kari much prefers to work alone at home and set her own routines.

In 1994 she got her business license and sent cold query letters to publishers. Slowly, indexing assignments were offered, but to balance her checkbook, as well as the two sides of her nature -- the teacher with the homebody -- she took a part-time reference position. Recognizing the contradiction between the outreaching teacher and the lone indexer, she jokes, "I'm a socially active hermit."

The ability to help others, Kari believes, is intrinsic to being an indexer. "I am the user's advocate," she says, who predicts how the user will try to access an idea. These days indexers have technological issues to deal with as they index, and for one client, Kari creates embedded indexes. But whether the product is electronic or printed, the user is foremost in Kari's mind.

Also on Kari's mind these days is the ASI/PNW membership directory which she hopes to publish and distribute during her term as chairperson. The directory will be sent to the publishing industry in the PNW, as well as to members, to publicize the professionalism of our organization, and to introduce members to potential clients.

Kari hopes it will assist in "drumming up business" for members, which is probably the most disliked aspect of indexing. "The indexer personality is not geared towards self-marketing," Kari believes. She suggests that those who are uncomfortable substitute the "you need me" hard-sell with a more educational approach. Although shy about selling herself, Kari tries to educate a prospective client by leading into a discussion about the usefulness of an index. "If I feel I am helping someone, I can talk forever."

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