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Another tip is to go to Library and Recipes and type in the ingredient in the search bar. You can then look through the recipes to see how it has been indexed previously. I also use this method if I'm not sure if a word should be capitalised in the recipe title.

How many of us are member indexing our books:-) I have around 70 books left to go on my bookshelf!

For a while now, it has seemed as if just under half of those indexed are Member Indexed. And my impression is that there are between 300 and 400 of those.  Figuring that only a small percentage of the members who've indexed have done more than one boo, I'm guessing that there are at least 300 members who've completed the indexing for a book.

Am I even in the ballpark?

To add to the statistics stated above, there are definitely more members than you might think who have indexed multiple books. It's really great how popular this feature has become as a way for members to index their less popular/more obscure books not owned by enough members to warrant professional indexing. 

And based on debkellie's comment, I'm now curious  -- are there are any other members attempting to index all of their un-indexed books that fall beneath the pro-indexing threshold? I'd say that is quite an impressive goal! (assuming I am understanding your comment correctly, debkellie!)

That is indeed my goal, but I forgot the count of those books I have that are not yet showing up in EYB library ;-).My husband says I've become addicted. But it beats watching TV, and makes me a more productive user of my books! We've eaten so many "new" things just from this process .. quite fascinating.. !

Thanks very much for that info, Sydney and Christine.  I should have guessed there are quite a lot of repeat indexers, as most of the learning takes place the first time out; once you've put in that effort, it only makes sense to make use of what you've taken the trouble to master.  Recommendation to anyone who's recently had a book released: don't wait more than a year to do another, as I did!

There are only three unindexed books on my actual kitchen shelf, and one of them is what I plan to index next (once the magazine I recently submitted has been reviewed and released).  I can imagine doing another of the three this winter.  But the third is rather a large book, and (finally!) is approaching fifty bookshelves, so I'm hoping it will become an EYB priority in the next year. 

Shamelessly selfish plug:  Would anyone who owns An Encyclopedia of Chinese Food and Cooking by Wonona Chang et al. please request that it be indexed?  Thanks in advance!

Maybe we could help each other out by teaming up with someone else who is keen to index and agreeing to each index a book that we both have but are not indexed - and so getting two for the price of one!  Only problem for me is that so far in looking at Books In Common with several other people I have found that we only share books that are already indexed :-(

Probably this is not the very best moment to bring it up, in the middle of the fall-winter-holiday cookbook avalanche of releases, but...

It would be really excellent if, by the time that EYB reaches the 5000-books-indexed milestone, all the books on 50 or more members' bookshelves were indexed -- regardless of request levels.  There are about 115 such popular but unindexed books that are not currently being indexed. Many of those are probably a high priority for the new year, when the dust settles (and when much of the newly published crop are short-lived, never-to-reach-50-shelves diet books).  But clearly not all.

Certainly, the priority pile will never be completely reduced to nothing -- as new members join EYB, books will keep rising to the 50-shelf threshhold.  But I see the 5000 mark as a real opportunity for promoting the site.  That would make it important to be able to say that big, enduring books like Escoffier, the Betty Crocker cookbooks, Sous Vide for Home Cooks, New Doubleday Cookbook, Commander's Palace, Southern Living Cookbook, Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cook, and the Australian Women's Weekly Kitchen (and other widely held WWs) are in the bag, regardless of the number of requests they might get between now and next spring.

Nice goal Ellabee and great idea SusanF.. as to your suggestion ellabee, indexing doesn't come cheaply.. maybe we should all give the gift of books this year to our cooking friends, at $25 per gift membership that's a pretty cheap "Christmas Kringle" present for work colleagues, extended family etc etc.. We also need to at least ensure all our friends know about EYB!. The more paying members we get the more likley it is that your suggested threshold might be able to be met!!!

SusanF .. that idea is great, but I have a feeling that the opportunity to look at each other's full bookshelves might require a software change. It looks as though the facility to see "books in common" only shows indexed books we each have in common , not all books.. but I could be wrong and no doubt Fiona will let us know ;-)

Just to clarify a bit... when you select "books in common" on another member's profile, it will show both indexed and unidexed books you have in common. The indexed books will always appear first and if you are only seeing indexed books in common, it is likely because overlap between members is much more likely for the more popular and thus, already indexed books. The likelihood of having less popular and still unindexed books in common will depend a lot on on each individual member's taste in cookbooks.

This has nothing to do with books I own. It's about aiming for a sort of completeness as EYB really hits a critical mass.  Sort the unindexed books by popularity and you'll see what I mean.

And, though I agree that there is no better gift to a cook than an Eat Your Books membership, it's not a question of extra resources, either. It's a question of how existing pro indexer resources are deployed. I'm making the case for prioritizing books on 50-75 shelves between late this year and next summer, putting aside newer 2014 releases and multi-index-requested books below 50 shelves if need be until those 100+ are done.

Great topic here.  My goal is to try to index all the unindexed books that I own before I can no longer cook or kick the bucket.  And, I have many such books - 316 books now.  :-(  

Only 280 of my books are indexed.  I guess I have many unusual books or older books :-)

Originally Posted by: Rinshin

Great topic here.  My goal is to try to index all the unindexed books that I own before I can no longer cook or kick the bucket.  And, I have many such books - 316 books now.  :-(  

 

Only 280 of my books are indexed.  I guess I have many unusual books or older books :-)

I definitely have a low percentage of indexed books in my collection (210 books in database; 65 of those indexed. That doesn't count a large number of older/small press books that don't have ISBNs that I couldn't add to my collection). I guess some of it is I inherited a lot of my grandmother's older vintage books, but I do actually use a number of them on a regular basis.

I'm on my third book to index and I do get eager about wanting to get at least a large number of my "oddball" books indexed eventually! Maybe not ALL of them, just the ones I know I'd be inclined to use more if I knew what was in them.  I'm trying to focus on books I don't use or know as well first, as it's a good way for me to get familiar with them versus books I already know inside and out. Also I'm trying to look at books that at least 10 or so people list in their inventory - so they are less-popular titles but not exactly "orphan books" that maybe only I own.

ellabee - unfortunately we are not yet in the position of having the membership income we need to index all the books we would like to.  It costs us an average of 5 years membership to index each book and we do have to consider when indexing each book how much it will cost us to do.  Some of the books you mention would require a disproportionate cost - e.g. The New Doubleday Cookbook contains 4,000 recipes which is equal to us indexing around 20 other books or Escoffier has around 3,000 recipes which is equal to about 15 other books.

Another factor we consider when choosing which books to index are the number of index requests.  Just because a lot of members own a book doesn't mean it is a book they use (or want to use!).  We add together the number of Bookshelves and the number of index requests on our indexing chart.

Some others of the books with higher scores are one of many editions of books such as the Betty Crocker and Better Homes & Gardens books.  We have indexed one or two editions but cannot at this stage index every edition.

Finally, because our indexers get older books from the library, sometimes we can have books sitting at the top of our chart for a long time because none of our indexers can get hold of it.  American Cooking: New England from the Time-Life Foods of the World series has been at the top of the chart for a long time because no-one can get hold of it - would one of the members who owns it like to volunteer? Sous Vide for the Home Cook is another book that is proving hard to get hold of.

In addition to everything Jane said, I think there is one other thing worth noting -- If you ever wonder why an older book comes through as newly indexed that is on a smaller number of shelves, keep in mind that some of those are linked to other equivalent editions so when combining the number of shelves across editions PLUS the index requests across editions, the total score could be higher than you might think. Just one more factor that goes into the process of deciding what books will get indexed next!