Review
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Title: The Speaker's Index to 40 Years of General Conference
Author: James E. Kerns
Publisher: Cedar Fort
Genre: Non-fiction/Reference
Year Published: 2010
Number of Pages: Unnumbered
Binding: Paper
ISBN10: n/a
ISBN13: 978-1-59955-414-3
Price: $21.99

Reviewed by Andrew Hamilton for the Association for Mormon Letters

"The Speaker's Index to 40 Years of General Conference" got its start in 1972 when James Kerns was asked by a BYU religion professor to index two General Conference issues of the "Ensign" for a "Teachings of the Living Prophets" class. He has been indexing his conference issues ever since. In 2004 he had his notes printed and bound and distributed copies to his family for Christmas. This edition by Cedar Fort has been updated to the May 2010 issue of the "Ensign."

While this book is called "The Speaker's Index to 40 Years of General Conference," it technically covers closer to 42 years. It starts with the October 1968 General Conference (Kerns chose this as his starting point because this was the first Conference after his baptism) and, as mentioned, it ends with the April 2010 General Conference as reported in the May 2010 "Ensign."

"The Speaker's Index" is a reference book that covers every subject that Kerns feels has been spoken of in 40 plus years worth of General Conference and associated meetings. (He also indexes "General Relief Society Meetings," the "General Young Women's Meetings," and the "Welfare Sessions," that were reported in the "Ensign"). The book is set up by subject, in alphabetical order, and starts with a two page Table of Contents. The TOC is nice in that it provides a quick overview of the subjects that are covered in the book, but it is limited in that there are no page numbers; in fact, one of the drawbacks of this book is that the pages are unnumbered. I don't know how much it would have cost Kerns or Cedar Fort to number the pages, but the dollar or two it would have added to the cost of the book would have been worth it to me.

On the page, "How to Use this Index" Kerns states the following, "The 'Ensign'(1971 to Present), and its predecessor, 'The Improvement Era' (1968-1970), were used for this indexing project. The three-column pages of those magazines were divided into six sections -- a through f -- to make references quickly locatable. Column one contains sections a and b. Column two contains sections c and d. Column three contains sections e and f." This sounds straightforward enough. However, as I tried looking up some of the references, I found that it was not always as easy as it sounds because Kerns does not define how he separates the sections. Is the page split across the middle? Or are the individual columns split into as near as equal parts as possible? (Due to pictures and graphics being on some pages, not all columns in the magazines are of equal length, and of course, the paragraphs vary in size.)

Or is there some other system? One example of a problem I ran into occurred when I looked up Quentin L. Cook's October 2009 talk under the section heading Kerns labeled "Welfare Program." According to Kerns I would find "Martin Luther King III's reaction to" on page 93 sections e-f of the November 2009 "Ensign." When I went to that issue and page I did find Elder Cook's talk, and he does speak of and quote King, but not until the next to last paragraph which starts well below two thirds of the way down the page.

When I first saw this book on the shelves of the Cedar Fort display at the LDS Booksellers convention my initial reaction was along the lines of, "It's all on the internet now, how helpful could that book be?" I picked it up anyway and immediately saw great value to speakers and teachers in this book. Kerns has done his homework. He has thought of far more subjects and ideas in more ways than I would have thought of. For instance, the first entry, "Aaronic Priesthood," covers two and a half pages. Under the section heading the book states "Related Topics: Priesthood, Scouting, Young Women, Youth." The entry on "Priesthood" cover nearly eight more pages and further refers you to "Authority, Foreordination, and Keys." "Scouting" adds another half a page, "Young Women," nearly four more, and "Youth" adds just over seven more pages to the subject, with each of these referring the reader to several more related subjects. To me this was a lot more helpful than typing the words "Aaronic Priesthood" into a search engine to see what I would get.

The references for each subject are listed in chronological order, and list the name of the speaker, followed by a brief description of what they spoke about, the month and year the magazine was published, and then the page and column/section the quote is found on in the magazine. If there is more than one quote from the same article then the speakers name and the date are omitted on subsequent lines. If the next speaker listed on the page has a talk in the same issue then the date is also omitted. To make it easier on the eyes in separating the entries, every other line on the page is shaded in a light grey tone. Many of the descriptions are followed by a brief commentary by Kerns. Some simply say, "Story," some are more descriptive such as one which states, "W. Woodruff wagon story." Other commentary includes "Definition," "Entire Talk," "Excellent," and "Amazing."

Unfortunately in my mind this book has a major weakness: on most of the entries it only got me "half way" to what I needed. Let me explain. Kerns has set up his book with the idea that the reader has physical copies of the "Ensign" and "Improvement Era" in front of them as they are studying. I do not have 40 years worth of Conference "Ensigns" and two years worth of "Improvement Eras" in my possession, nor do I have easy access to them. My Ward and Stake Libraries do not have them; my city library (Tooele, Utah) does not have them. To see physical copies of all of these magazines, I would have to drive to the Church History Library in Salt Lake City (about 35 miles away) or to the BYU Library in Provo, Utah (about 90 miles away). That's a lot of work to look up a quote for a talk or lesson. I would guess that most Church members, especially newer and younger members, and especially those outside of Utah (which is now the majority of Latter-day Saints), are in the same boat that I am. Especially when it comes to the "Improvement Era," I would guess that most new members of the Church and most members under 30 years of age have not even heard of the "Improvement Era." So the format of this book for finding the referenced quotes is a *huge* drawback to most potential readers.

It is true, as I mentioned earlier, that the LDS Church has put almost all of the articles from its current official magazines, including "The Ensign," on its website. This means that every General Conference from 1971 to the present can be looked up at lds.org. This however is of limited use to the reader of "The Speaker's Index." First of all the "Improvement Era" for the years 1968 through 1970 is not online so any references to that magazine will be nearly impossible for most readers to find. Second, for the years 1971 through 2000 the Church has only posted "The Ensign" in the "html" (HyperText Markup Language) format. These html documents *do not* retain the format of the original magazine, which is crucial for Kerns' reference system to work. The html entries on the lds.org website, as any who have looked at them know, retain the paragraphs and wording of the original articles but do not retain the format, pictures, graphics, or pagination. Almost all of these items play into Kerns' referencing system. It is true that issues of the "Ensign" since 2001 are also saved on the lds.org website in pdf (portable document format) form which *does* preserve an exact replica of the hard copy magazine, but this is accounts for a mere 10 of the 40 years that Kerns' book (not to mention all of his efforts) cover.

One minor change would have removed this problem, made the book completely compatible with the lds.org website, and thus much more useful to most readers. Had Kerns or the Cedar Fort editors *numbered* the paragraphs in each of the talks, almost like a verse number in the scriptures, and then given those numbers in place of the pages number and column letters, it would have solved this whole problem. For instance, the ninth entry under "Aaronic Priesthood" (the first one in an issue of the "Ensign"), reads "Vaughn J Featherstone, 3 Groups of Holders, July 1972, 45c." Online this does me almost no good because the online version has no columns. I had to read most of the article to find and verify the referenced material. Had Kerns used paragraph numbers instead of column letters, had the last column in "The Speaker's Index" been labeled "Paragraph," and had the Vaughn J Featherstone entry simply said, "July 1972" followed by "5-7," I would have been able to find the reference immediately. I don't know if there will be future editions of this book, but if there are, or if someone plans a similar work, I would highly recommend that the author/editor consider how readers will be accessing the information.

While this book does have this major flaw, I still believe that it is very useful. In fact I would recommend that anyone wanting to gain an understanding of modern LDS thought and doctrine might use this book in their study. Almost every prophet since Harold B. Lee has made statements to the effect that if they want to know the "will of the Lord," that if they want to know their "marching orders for the next six months," they will study the conference reports as found in the Church magazines. Several of them have suggested that these reports should be kept with and given the same status as the scriptures. If the reports of General Conference really are that important, and if they do contain the instructions of what LDS members are to believe and do, then "The Speaker's Index" could be potentially important and useful for at least two reasons. First, it gives increased access to LDS readers, teachers, and speakers to important, "official," doctrinal and policy statements, teachings, announcements, and scripture interpretations and reinterpretations, but perhaps more importantly, by detailing where to find 40 years worth of such statements, "The Speaker's Index" could potentially be a great tool for those wishing to gain a greater insight into the development of modern LDS theology over the last four decades.