Excerpt from The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 16 of 16: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church; Index

As originally planned and announced The Catholic Encyclopedia was not to have an Index Volume. The editors were of the opinion that the alphabetical order of the articles and numerous cross references would enable the reader to find readily the topics ordinarily sought after. Few encyclopedias have indexes.

No sooner had the first volume appeared than subscribers urged upon the editors the necessity of publishing an Index. The numerous topics treated in the articles, all of unusual character and interest, would, it was argued, be extremely difficult to find without the aid of an analytical index. Such an index would tell the reader at a glance every part of the work in which a given topic is discussed, and bring together in alphabetical arrangement every other topic closely related with it.

Shortly after deciding to prepare an analytical index of the Encyclopedia, in April, 1907, the editors began the work, by training a corp of assistants who, as each successive volume appeared, selected the titles which would be most com monly the subject of inquiry. In this way the titles selected were available for reference as the work went on so that they could be constantly tested by the editors, and, on the completion of the Fifteenth Volume of the Encyclopedia, nothing further remained to be done except the arrangement and verification of the titles as they occur in the passages indicated, and the usual painstaking reading of printer's proofs which such work requires.

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