About Me

My name is Gina Guilinger and I am the owner and operator of Weight of the Word Indexing Service. I am a member of the American Society for Indexing, serving on the Executive Board (2019-2024), and as President of ASI (2022-2023). I have also served as the Chair of the ASI Membership Committee. I am an active member of the following ASI Special Interest Groups (SIGs): Culinary Indexing SIG, Gardening and Environmental Studies SIG, and History/Archaeology SIG. I am a member of the Rocky Mountain Area Chapter of ASI, where I served on the Executive Board as Vice Chair and Chair from 2012-2016. I am also a member of The Indexing Society of Canada and Editorial Freelancers Association. I am a graduate of the UC Berkeley Indexing Theory and Application course. I received my BA in Law, Societies, and Justice from the University of Washington.

My background includes 15 years experience in independent bookstores in Seattle and Denver; 9 years in various positions with UPS, including Import/Export, Dispatch, and Supervisor; and 20 years as a freelance research and technical assistant for World Industrial Minerals, a mining and minerals consulting firm. Additionally, I have been a remote contract indexer for Alexander Street, part of Clarivate, indexing a wide variety of video, print, and archival products from 2013-2020 and 2022-2024 and a remote contract indexer for WARC, indexing marketing case studies from 2023–present.

I participated in the 1940 US Census Community Project as a volunteer indexer and was a former member of the Shrine of St. Anne Directory Team. I have written guest posts about indexing for the blogs, At Least We're Here, and Message in a Bottle. I was featured in the Spotlight section of the April, 2022 issue of ASI's monthly newsletter, See Also.

A note about generative AI: Weight of the Word Indexing Service does not input or use any content, data, or information provided by clients or created by Weight of the Word Indexing Service into any generative or predictive artificial intelligence software, programs, or models.

From the Digital Publications Indexing SIG of ASI:

Statement on the Role of AI in Indexing (as at July 1, 2025)

The current assessment is that using large language model AIs (LLMs)  such as ChatGPT to generate indexes does not produce results that come  anywhere near meeting standards for excellence in Indexing.

These LLMs fail at the indexer’s primary task: to ensure readers find needed information. Tests have shown that LLMs typically underindex book-length works, do  not provide adequate structure or cross-references, and can insert false  information (hallucinations) into the index.* Each of these is problematic:

• Severe under-indexing, with as few as 20-40% of the  access points of human-generated indexes, can prevent readers from  locating desired information and mislead them into thinking that omitted  information isn’t in the book at all
• Absent/near-absent index structure, especially  cross-references, prevents the reader from effectively navigating to  subtopics and related topics while misrepresenting the focus of the book
• Hallucinations (including invented page references  and even wholly nonexistent topics) waste the reader’s time and break  the trust between the reader and the book

Future developments in AI may bring improvements, but at present the human brain of a professional indexer is still the best tool for analyzing, writing, and editing an index in full awareness of context as per quality standards.

*Bartmess, Elizabeth, “AI: Where You Can Use It and Where  You Shouldn’t,” May 31, 2025, ISC/SCI Conference 2025 “Location!  Location! Location”.

If you are interested in indexing as a career, I would love to answer any questions you have via email or Zoom and send you a list of resources!