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I'm thinking about volunteering to index one of my books, but want to know more about it. I thought I might find a guide to the process, but can't see one. Is there a list of ingredients available, so that I can copy & paste - e.g. gochujang, chicken livers - without having to type it every time? I'm a 2-finger typist. Roughly how much time does it take per recipe?

The speed of indexing varies enormously between indexers so I cannot really give you an estimate. We suggest you start with a small, simple book and see whether you enjoy it. Sydney will do a lot of hand-holding at the start and give you feedback.

The Help section on Member Indexing is also very helpful. It will seem a lot of information at the start but a lot of it is common sense and the rules will become familiar, the more indexing you do. If you click Help at top right and scroll down you will see lots of pages on indexing, including ingredient shortcodes.

Jane's recommendation re: a small simple book for a 1st try was KEY for me....and it was really helpful that it was single subject book ( ie all salads or soups or muffins etc)...I was able to get into a rhythm (all be it a slow one :) much more easily.

Agree completely that starting small is the best way to try out indexing. If none of your unindexed cookbooks seems manageable, maybe you have an issue of a magazine with recipes that would give you a good feel for the task, and the satisfaction of making more recipes accessible to you and others.

Two-finger typing will only be a burden when writing EYB Notes, because most of the fields, including Ingredients, have you select from pull-down menus. It's an exacting process, especially at first, but empowering once you've done it successfully: you won't have to wait for someone else to make the recipes in your lesser-known cookbooks available. Applying the categories while indexing also helps you learn & understand them better, making your EYB searches more effective.

I printed out the Store-Cupboard Ingredients table and the Ingredient keyboard shortcuts to have close by during indexing sessions, but keeping them open in another tab is also an option. Keeping the Recipe Types chart open is essential, even for experienced indexers. Have fun and best wishes in your indexing efforts!

I've member-indexed many books in the past, although haven't had time to do any in a long time. Just wanted to echo everything that ellabee said. I can't really add to what she said--she covered all of the basics and all of my thoughts. Just don't be intimidated. There are a lot of rules, but it's fun and won't be too difficult (especially if you're a detail-oriented person), and Sydney has a lot of patience and will help you out if you're having trouble. (I wish more people were interested in member indexing. It's also a very good way to get more familiarity with your own cookbooks.)

You might also want to first try adding some Personal Recipes to your Bookshelf. While it's not exactly the same as indexing an entire cookbook, you will become familiar with many of the same fields including the use of the drop down lists for ingredients, recipe types, ethnicities, etc. That's how I started over 10 years ago before moving on to book indexing. To date, I've added more than 15,200 personal recipes!

Amen! Sydney is a gem and guided me patiently through oh-so-many growing pains.

Sydney has the patience of a saint … she’s guided me too!