DOI: 10.3828/index.2026.29 ISSN: 0019-4131

Indexing UK parliamentary business

Anya Somerville

An exploration of the evolution and practice of indexing UK parliamentary business in the House of Commons Library, focusing on the Indexing and Data Management Section. The article traces the transition from manual indexes to digital systems. The operational realities of indexing in the Library today are described, including the collaborative and iterative nature of the work, and the role of controlled vocabularies and indexing principles.