Anyone who has ever helped a child with their homework will know that the standard of children’s book indexes varies considerably and that the results are frequently disappointing and even confusing for a young child. It is entirely appropriate that the nature of the problem is explored in the context of the revised National Curriculum and that is what this paper sets out to do.
The paper presents a succinct summary of the findings of the Bakewell/Williams research on children’s indexing and is largely derived from their original British Library Research and Innovation report (129) of 1997. This paper, however, also contains sections on the importance of indexes and their relevance to the up‐dated National Curriculum as well as presenting an overview of the presentation and quality of children’s indexes. The examination of how children at Key Stage 2 use indexes and the review of workshops undertaken with secondary school children on indexes and indexing provide valuable insights into the problems and preferences of children in their use of information books at different stages.
The views of children feature strongly in this report and quotations by the children themselves (“The index is the thing at the back of the book”) and examples of children’s search behaviour are particularly revealing. Analysis of the problems children encounter, for example, in dealing with passing mentions or the representation of page ranges (“all those numbers would just make me give up”), is thought‐provoking. The paper makes it apparent that children have clear views when it comes to the use of indexes and there are identifiable features of a children’s book index that make it acceptable, or not, to a given age group.
The paper highlights a number of key factors, which may be holding back the development of consistent good practice in the indexing of children’s information books. Among these, the limited recognition by the revised National Curriculum of the need explicitly to train youngsters in the use of indexes and also the very mixed views of children’s book publishers on the need for prescribed standards of practice. Indeed, the findings show that fewer than one third of participating publishers felt that all children’s information books should have an index. The authors, however, quite rightly make the connection between children’s ability effectively to exploit indexes and those needed to identify electronic information on the Internet and on CD‐ROM in an effective way.
The authors present the case for indexes that are appropriate to the needs of children and their arguments are supported by evidence. This paper makes valuable reading for anyone who is interested in the use of information books by children and its conclusions and recommendations are realistic and hopefully attainable. This is a paper that deserves to be read widely by everyone with an interest in children and their learning.
