Working on the indices of the Harvard Theological Review (1908-2008).(Viewpoint essay)

In discussing the work of indexing the Harvard Theological Review, I shall begin by describing the organization and development of the project, and the various ideals and principles involved in its design. Then I shall show what some specific keyword selections will call up on searches; these selections collectively exemplify the many diverse and distinctive features of the Harvard Theological Review's collection. This article merely serves as an introduction to the Index; when I complete the project, I shall elaborate further on various matters and exemplary elements in a forthcoming expanded version of this lecture-based article.

When I was invited to consider this project, the initial idea was to employ several people, each of whom would take a portion of the articles HTR has published over the years and compile relevant keyword lists for that portion. To prepare for my own work on it, I sketched out a preliminary set of lists based on a random sampling of articles from different decades. My purpose was to get a feel for issues that might arise regarding changes in terminology, changes in content, and academic styles and interests over time, as well as how many articles might naturally bundle together under the aegis of certain general and more specific keywords. When I presented my first test case involving twenty-five articles, it became apparent that there was good reason to have one person coordinate the entire project in order to streamline the keyword format and thus produce as unified and coherent a result as possible. Such coherence is especially important given that the research mechanism of the resulting index will be two-fold. One will be able to type in keywords and gather and sift through the results. There will also, however, be an online list of all the assigned keywords, constituting a thematic index through which one can scroll. Editor Francois Bovon and …