3 April 2017
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.
