The ISC/SCI is pleased to announce that the 2023 Ewart-Daveluy Indexing award was presented to Enid L. Zafran on Friday, June 9, at the ISC/SCI awards banquet. The award recognizes Zafran’s index for Accidental Conflict: America, China, and the Clash of False Narratives, by Stephen Roach. The book was published in 2022 by Yale University Press.
Enid Zafran, who has been indexing for over 40 years, found this book “a unique challenge.” The text examines the political and trade relations between two countries, each of which has adopted a false narrative concerning the other: America falsely blames its trade and technology threats on China yet overlooks its shaky domestic saving foundation; China falsely blames its growth challenges on America’s alleged containment of market-based socialism, ignoring its failure to achieve structural rebalancing.
Zafran commented, “[The book] presented a lot of jigsaw pieces . . . that I had to fit together (requiring a network of cross-referencing).” She worked closely with the author, who praised his indexer for producing “an outstanding index in all respects—it really brings the book to life as a tool for readers.”
The Ewart-Daveluy Award jury noted that the text is easy to read but not easy to index, with a high density of terms per page. Zafran’s “overall consistency of approach and decisions is stellar,” and they congratulate her for “outstanding work that required concentration, thoroughness, and distinguishing closely related notions.”
Congratulations to Yale University Press and Stephen Roach, the author, for recognizing the importance and value of a well-written index.
The index is available courtesy of Yale University Press.
Enid L. Zafran started indexing in 1975, working for a legal publisher in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1990 she moved to Washington, DC, to become Director of Indexing Services at the Bureau of National Affairs, where she oversaw a department of 40 indexers. Her business, Indexing Partners LLC, formed in 1989 and is now located in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. She has written extensively about indexing and given many presentations on the subject to indexing groups, librarians, and the general public. A founding member of the Institute of Certified Indexers, she offers an Indexing Boot Camp to newer indexers to help them learn indexing styles and techniques.
The ISC/SCI Ewart-Daveluy Award, inaugurated in 2015, is presented each year to an individual who has created an index that demonstrates outstanding expertise through a combination of skills. Eligible indexers are Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada, or non-Canadians who are members of ISC/SCI at the time of writing the index.
