The Gazette 1972

MI SCELLANEOUS ITEMS

Legal Authors, Law Librarians, Law Publishers and Indexers

No, look in whatever direction you may, the indexer is the most important person involved in the production of a law book. Without him, law books would be, to some extent, somewhat meaningless exercises : the needle in the haystack would be an appropriate analogy. Doyen of legal indexers What has all this got to do with me? Well, the other day I met one. I would like to call Mr. John Bray Freeman one of the doyens of legal indexers, but he does not look old enough to be doyen of anything. Now I realise (as I am sure he does, he is such a delightfully modest and charming person) that few outside his own particular circle know and applaud hi» 1 as probably being one of the most important persons involved with law books. In every day, in countless offices especially in England and Wales, but also throughout the world, there are unspoken tributes to his skill and accuracy : he after all, does not only have to index a work, but he has to read our minds to know where we are going to look to find the item we require. 1'his must involve him in a sort of multi-clairvoyance : every index can be prepared in literally hundreds of ways, but to he intelligible, it must only be prepared in one. I saw him the other day when he came down to Chichester to discuss a new project—I would like to think it was a little daunting, even for Mr. Bray Free- man. And may I say that every time we pick up either Laws or Statutes, or English and Empire Digest, ° r Paterson or many other standard authorities, and W e refer to the index, we may have to pay testimony to h lS work. The latest count or "score" of current authorities comprises 130 volumes, included among them being Harris's Criminal Jurisdiction of Magistrates, a new edition of which is due out soon. Now he is landed with the task of indexing the annual volumes of the "J.P." from its inception in 1837- Instead of blanching, as I know I would have done the very thought, Mr. Bray Freeman satisfied himsen with a remark of typical understatement: he said h e regarded it as an "interesting" task. The first volume is to he for the eleven years 1960-1971, and he has alread> started work on the project. He tells me that the secret of a successful indexer is to concentrate upon a P artl J cular work until it is finished—in this way, the thread of continuity is maintained. , He is a former member of the bar, who disbarred himself some years ago to help out the family firm 01 solicitors in Yorkshire. These days, he has retired corn* pletely from legal practice, although I suppose he I s now an unspoken anonymous toast of practically ever> practitioner who ever opens a law book. From now o* 1 » I hope he will be a little less anonymous in their minds- I wonder how he will index this item? Probably shall have to wait ten years to find out. . Justice of the Peace (15th Jan. 197/) 120

I suppose there are many of us who look with admira- tion upon the authors of textbooks. We are but dimly aware of the gallons of midnight oil burned in their composition; we suspect that they are not too highly remunerated; we have the faintest suspicion that they must do it for knocks—as certain reviewers seem to go out of their way to find something wrong about the finished product. Nevertheless, the book that informs the practitioner and instructs the student is a form of public service, without which the wheels of justice, instead of creaking so slowly, would probably stop altogether. Then I suppose that there are others among us who look with envy upon the law librarian; there he is, monarch of all he surveys, being able and expected to dip into practically every book on his shelves, to better advise and assist the users of the library. Those who have been stuck on a point, and started a paper-chase of going from volume to volume, getting conflicting opinions from each but never entirely satis- fied with any—and then having to give up because of more pressing problems—must look at the calm and dignified mien of the law librarian with envy. No mat- ter how pressed he may be, he seems always the embodi- ment of knowing where the answers are to he found, with always yet another volume to come up with if he existing one fails to meet expectations. Also, there are those who actually sell law books. Soniewat restricted as to geographical area, in the triangle bounded by Lincoln's Inn Archway, Bell Yard and Chancery Lane, possibly they are not so much to he envied as to be pitied. For the bookseller ordinary, it should have been said if it hasn't already that they are the luckiest of men—"I wonder often what the Vintners b u y / One half so precious as the stuff they sell" But for law booksellers, it must he difficult for them to wax enthusiastic about some of the titles they sell—although, like law librarians, they must know what they are about. In my catalogue, we then come to the law publishers, who as everyone knows, are virtually the book-makers of the whole business. It is the law publisher who decides it is time for a new hook on this, or a new edition on that. Trying to think up subjects for a new thesis is difficult enough, but I would suggest that one of these days, a thesis on what actuates a law publisher to bring out a new edition, might well prove a rather fascinating exercise. But all these are lost without an indexer. What use is a law hook without an index? The index is the key to the whole business. The law librarian will falter in his stride if confronted by a book not properly indexed; the author pales visiblv at any suggestion that he might have to learn a highly specialised trade in order to index the book himself; the law bookseller will look rather like the Bateman cartoon—"The law book with- out an index"—and will swoon (especially if he happens to have bought any copies for resale).