Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to assess the back of the book indexes in Natural Science books published in Nigeria. But the specific objectives of the study were to determine: how indexes are provided in the Natural Science texts sampled; the extent to which basic indexing elements are provided; the depth of indexing; the filing and arrangement pattern of the index entries and finally, if differences exist in the indexes of secondary school texts and tertiary/general Science books. Four research questions guided the study, and a structured checklist was adopted and used to obtain information to answer the research questions. A descriptive design using document examination was adopted for this research. The researcher used the accidental sampling technique to sample books in the Natural Sciences. All the books published in the Natural Sciences in Nigeria within the period 1990 – 2010 constituted the population of the study. Sixty books were sampled, 35 of which had indexes, while 25 of them had no index. The data collected were organized in tables and analyzed, using simple percentages, frequencies and histogram. The findings revealed that: many Nigerian published books in the Natural Sciences lack back-of-the-book indexes; most index entries lack sub-headed entries and semantic relationship; cross-references – ‘see’ and ‘see also’ were very few; the filing order and arrangement patterns of the index entries were in line with international standards and no outstanding differences were found in the indexes of secondary school texts and tertiary /general Science books. In view of these findings, the study recommends that book publication in Nigeria should be assessed and controlled. Nigerian Information professionals should set up standard indexing outfits to be manned by professional indexers who should handle book indexing in Nigeria; public enlightenment programmes should be carried out by information scientists from time to time to enlighten publishers and authors on the importance of indexing in their work. Finally, further research in this area of study was suggested by the researcher.
