Under "I", in the index of one of his books, Douglas Hofstadter (of Gödel, Escher, Bach fame) included an entry for "index, challenges of, 598; as revelatory of book's nature, 598; typo in, 631; as work of art, 598". As might be said these days: preach! Indexes are challenging to produce; they are revelatory of a book's nature; and the best ones are works of art. And, as Hofstadter ruefully if wittily recognised (including under "T" "typo in index, 633" in a book that ended on page 632) they sometimes contain typos. But not, you'd hope, those produced by professionals.
In our Google era, indexers are the unsung heroes of the publishing world | Books | The Guardian
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