Indexing


Indexing is one of the last steps in the publication process. I provide back-of-the-book indexing services for academic books as well as cookbooks. My subject specialties include critical theory, queer studies, music (theory and musicology) as well as theology, but am willing to work on most subjects within the humanities and social sciences.

A successful index provides your reader a roadmap of your book and includes the substantive content of your book. Detailed indexing helps readers to find the key aspects of your argument, the secondary scholarship your book relies on, as well as any number of other interesting details your research has turned up.

I read every page of your book and compile all substantive mentions into a detailed and user-friendly index. You’ll be sent a draft of the index before it’s due at your publisher, and changes may be requested.

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Training and Professional Development

I’m a member of the American Society for Indexing and the Indexing Society of Canada.

My initial training as an indexer was through one-on-one training with Kari Kells of Index West. I further refined my indexing skills through the Indexing Society of Canada’s mentorship program where I was mentored by Christine Jacobs.

I’ve continued to learn in specific areas by attending the national conferences of the Indexing Society of Canda (2021, 2022), the Pacific Northwest regional meetings of the American Society for Indexing (2021, 2022, 2023), and through webinars and courses made available through the American Society for Indexing. This includes courses on both culinary indexing and art book indexing.

  • "I highly recommend Matthew MacLellan’s indexing services. He was in touch with me exactly the right amount to make sure we were on the same page throughout the process. In the end, it was amazing to see my book mapped out in the index that he produced, because it reflected back to me, from a reader’s point of view, a picture of what I intended to be there. Matthew takes great care to reproduce the unique arguments of the book and is tremendously sensitive to the nuance of disciplinary terms of art. Without a doubt, I felt the full discussion of the topics had been captured in the index, and it was wonderful to feel totally confident with my manuscript in his hands."

    — Sharday Mosurinjohn, Assistant Professor at Queen's University and author of The Spiritual Significance of Overload Boredom (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022).

  • "Matthew did a superlative job with my index. His thoroughness and attention to detail made me look at my book in a new light. He was a joy to work with."

    — Samuel Clowes Huneke, Assistant Professor at George Mason University and author of States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany (University of Toronto Press, 2022).

  • "Matthew was easy to work with, responsive to my emails, and to my ideas and wishes. I would definitely be interested in working with him again on a future project."

    — Adele Reinhartz, Professor at the University of Ottawa and author of Bible and Cinema: An Introduction (Routledge, 2022).

Selected Work

Abman, Zamira. Coerced Liberation: Muslim Women in Soviet Tajikistan. University of Toronto Press, 2024.

Astourian, Laure. The Ethnographic Optic: Jean Rouch, Alain Resnais, and the Turn towards 1960s French Cinema. Indiana University Press, 2024.

Ben-Johanan, Karma. Jacob's Younger Brother: Christian-Jewish Relations after Vatican II. Harvard University Press, 2022.

Buchler, Michael and Gregory John Decker. Here for the Hearing: Analyzing the Music in Musical Theater. University of Michigan Press, 2023.

Burton, Emmanuelle, Judy Goldsmith, Nicholas Mattei, Cory Siler, and Sara-Jo Swiatek. Computing and Technology Ethics: Engaging through Science Fiction. MIT Press, 2023.

Camlot, Jason, Martha Langford, and Linda M. Morra. Collection Thinking: Within and Without Libraries, Archives and Museums. Routledge, 2022.

Cottrill, Amy. Uncovering Violence: Reading Biblical Narratives as an Ethical Project. Westminster John Knox Press, 2021.

Dauber, Jonathan V. Secrecy and Esoteric Writing in Kabbalistic Literature. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2022.

Dewhurst, Marit. Social Justice Art Education: Second Edition. Harvard Education Press, 2023.

Doney, Skye. The Persistence of the Sacred: German Catholic Pilgrimage, 1832–1937. University of Toronto Press, 2022.

Dunbar-Hester, Christina. Oil Beach: How Toxic Infrastructure Threatens Life in the Ports of Los Angeles and Beyond. University of Chicago Press, 2023.

Flanagan, Brenda A. and Hana Waisserová. Women's Artistic Dissent: Repelling Totalitarianism in Pre-1989 Czechoslovakia. Lexington Books, 2023 (forthcoming).

Groarke, Louis F. Uttering the Unutterable: Aristotle, Religion, and Literature. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2023.

Huneke, Samuel Clowes. States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany. University of Toronto Press, 2022.

Kaun, Anne and Fredrik Stiernstedt. Prison Media: Incarceration and the Infrastructures of Work and Technology. MIT Press, 2023.

Kehoe, S. Karly. Empire and Emancipation: Scottish and Irish Catholics at the Atlantic Fringe, 1780-1850. University of Toronto Press, 2022.

Kidd, Kenneth B. and Derritt Mason. Alt Kid Lit: What Children's Literature Might Be. University Press of Mississippi, 2024.

Kong, Travis S. K. Sexuality and the Rise of China. Duke University Press, 2023.

LaPinta, Linda Elisabeth. Kentucky Quilts and Quiltmakers: Three Centuries of Creativity, Community, and Commerce. Kentucky University Press, 2023

Malleck, Dan and Cheryl Krasnick Walsh. Pleasure and Panic: New Essays on the History of Alcohol and Drugs. University of British Columbia Press, 2022.

Marks, Laura U. The Fold: From Your Body to the Cosmos. Duke University Press, 2024.

Marks, Laura U. Hanan Al-Cinema: Affections for the Moving Image. MIT Press, 2015. (in collaboration with author).

Matassi, Mora and Pablo J. Boczkowski. To Know Is to Compare: Studying Social Media across Nations, Media, and Platforms. MIT Press, 2023.

McKenna, Peter (ed.). Harper’s World: The Politicization of Canadian Foreign Policy, 2006-2015. University of Toronto Press, 2022.

Mosurinjohn, Sharday C. The Spiritual Significance of Overload Boredom. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022.

Orr, Celeste E. Cripping Intersex. University of British Columbia Press, 2022.

Reinhartz, Adele. Bible and Cinema: An Introduction (2nd edition). Routledge, 2022 (film and subject index only).

Rich, Kelly M. The Promise of Welfare in the Postwar British and Anglophone Novel. Oxford University Press, 2023.

Rottmann, Andrea. Queer Lives Across the Wall: Desire and Danger in Divided Berlin, 1945–1970. University of Toronto Press, 2023.

Sas, Miryam. Feeling Media: Potentiality and the Afterlife of Art. Duke University Press, 2022.

Sendra Ferrer, Olga. Barcelona, City of Margins. University of Toronto Press, 2022.

Smithers, Laura E., Heidi Fischer, and Faith A. Watrous. Impact/Impasse: Revaluing University Classroom Life. SUNY Press, 2024.

Stein, Sebastian, and Joshua Wretzel. Hegel's Encyclopedic System. Routledge, 2021.

Wasielewski, Amanda. Computational Formalism: Art History and Machine Learning. MIT Press, 2023.

Contact Me

You can also reach me directly at matthew[at]matthewmaclellan.com