THE GUARDIAN INDEX

Sample Indexing Terms

To enable users to understand the structure of The Guardian Index and the terms used in it, we now reproduce a complete list of the Indexing Terms used in 1850 (when the Index was but 8 years old) and a complete list of Indexing Terms used in 1929 (when the card format had been adopted and the Index had become considerably more sophisticated).

Together with the Contents of Fiche already reproduced in this volume (which provide a sampling of the Indexing Terms for any given year) these lists will enable the user to better understand the overall structure of the Index and the broad set of indexing terms use das it developed over time.

The overall structure remains the same - an alphabetic list of topics including subjects (e.g. Free Trade), People (e.g. Churchill, Winston), Organisations (e.g. Liberal Party) and Places (e.g. United States of America). The only change to this is that “Sport” is separated off in 1958 to form its own alphabetic sequence at the end.

But, as is inevitable in an index compiled over a period of more than 140 years, the terms change and evolve. For example, movie news and reviews appear initially under “Kinema”, then as “Cinema” and later as “Films”. Theatre Reviews appear variously from time to time under “Drama”, “Theatre” and “Plays”. Equally, the events of the day result in a need for new indexing terms and changes in the emphasis of a paper result in whole new areas being taken on or discarded. During the period 1939-1945, for example, it was thought useful to introduce a new term “War” under which all of the reporting on the war was grouped.

As with all indexes, these nuances are best observed by use of the original index. It was compiled to enable journalists to track down relevant stories and pictures rapidly and - with a little lateral thinking on occasions - it will enable current library users to do just the same.

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